


Heart's Desire

by SunlitGarden



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Blood Drinking, Blossom family feud, Blossoms being Blossoms, Bonding, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Desire, Devotion, Djinni & Genies, F/M, Genie Betty Cooper, Human Jughead Jones, Jinn Betty Cooper, Minor Character Death, background Archie Andrews/other people, dark themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-11 03:19:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18421749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunlitGarden/pseuds/SunlitGarden
Summary: Emotion is brewing, and she can smell it. The fierce iron of blood mixed with the steady promise of wood. She’d smelled something similar years ago. Sifting through the air, she tracks it to a school, where a boy with a bruised cheek and crown-edged hat strikes matches to watch the sparks.Hello,she says, wriggling as a curl of smoke.





	1. Desire

**Author's Note:**

> This story has some dark themes but overall a lot of deep, beautiful love. Let me know if you have any questions about the tags or content either here or tumblr (@lovedinapastlife). Comments are still what feeds me (much like Betty and desire...ha!...you'll get it) so please save your fav passages or thoughts to share with me because I do appreciate your experiences. Major thanks to this fic's fairy godmother and beta @jandjsalmon, whose presence in the process added a whole other layer of love and inspiration to this fic. Fun fact: this is my 22nd fic on AO3, which is my lucky number. Woo!
> 
> May this fic fulfill your Bughead desires ^-^

Betty loves the decaying sign of Riverdale. She loves the _slightly_ poisoned riverbeds, the covenant as thick as its famous maple syrup. The strife, the saccharine, the near-sentient forces of light and dark.

 

She also likes drowning and baptisms, but that’s neither here nor there.

 

There’s enough mist where she can skim the surface of the river without fully submerging. No one will notice her under the light sounds of water lapping at the shore. The lonesome chirp of an animal in the distance. A single note, never quite a song.

 

There’s nobody else like her in Riverdale. That’s good. Especially since in a pack she always felt like she was scrambling, her former cohort a chaotic mess of _keep moving forward_. Even after her sister was captured. _A slave._ Bound, forced to tend to desires instead of finding them, and then gone.

 

Betty shivers, a ripple on the river.

 

The people who seek jinn out are best avoided. It’s a form of self-preservation. Most who know of her kind seek to harness and entrap them. The idea of being captive to the whims of a greedy master sends a chill down Betty’s spine.

 

The strong smell of sweet blood and burning lavender draws Betty to an estate where a woman with pale eyes and red hair watches the tree grove for signs of her mark. Although it’d probably be best to turn and slink away, Betty’s heart pounds with the urge to conquer her fear. To feed.

 

As Betty creeps through the incense, she extends herself to read the woman’s heart. Prestige. Greed. Purity. Vanity. The woman is educated more than most on the supernatural and wields knowledge like a concealed dagger to pin its prey. But she knows better than to try and tame a jinn on their first meeting, and Betty is hungry for desire.

 

The woman’s orchards are dying. A disease. The woman needs them healthy and _pure_.

 

Offering her name. _Rose Blossom._

 

The image of a flower steeped in stain flitters through Betty’s brain. The woman is losing her red hair, her namesake.

 

With the promise of fine Blossom blood and meat, of ruby jewels laid out like their rose bushes, and protection of the river and woods, Betty disintegrates the rotting infection inside the wood. The decay of a twisted heart remains unchanged by magic. Wickedness doesn’t bother her, nor does death. The metal brooch on her silk blouse worries Betty. A fat spider’s spindly golden legs with a hollow body tight enough to be bound to.

 

But the family _desires_. It makes Betty hungry.

 

As the trees shift, a bird tumbles loose from its nest. The woman snaps its neck with a sickening crunch, claiming it could never fly. This, coming from a woman who knows about magic.A mercy killing, Rose says. Like death is better than being dislodged. And maybe for the bird, it is, but Betty’s heart twinges in annoyance, because she happened to like the little one’s song.

 

Betty considers becoming her physical self, putting her broken palms out for a vial of blood and fresh meat. Secrets. Wishes. Passion. That’s part of her diet, her life. Not the feathery corpse so carelessly tossed to the side.

 

“I have just the thing,” the woman smiles and leads a small, scared girl by the hand. “There you go, darling. You may drink from this one.”

 

Betty stares at the trembling red-headed girl and reads the fear as rolling stones in her heart.

 

_She’s not willing. She’s afraid._

 

She’s also not a _Blossom_.

 

“Of course she is!” Rose protests, twisting the skin of the girl’s arm until it’s pink.

 

_She’s a slave._

 

A fissure cracks open in the Blossom’s back yard. Rose’s unruly dyed red hair flops out of its clip as she turns to make sure the bodies of the fallen have not been disturbed. As if Betty would go digging for bones and marrow. Betty singes their estate, whispering condolences in the form of mist to the little girl with scared, watery eyes.

 

The Blossoms are cursed. Technically, they could still pay her, so she doesn’t rescind their trees, although she can make their sweet nectar thin.

 

The little girl stays with them, unfortunately, earning her share of the empty wealth and not even seeking or wishing for freedom enough for Betty to grant it. Rose rubs her quartz and burns essential oils in the hopes of summoning Betty again, even without knowing her name. But Betty can read her heart. There is no flesh or apology on the horizon. The Blossoms wish to burn her with metal, pin her to their brooches and enslave her to their majesty.

 

Out of spite, she reappears in the grove, in _her_ element _,_ away from iron and gold. Rose’s son waits with his gilded cage, and Betty with her power, amplified by desire.

 

_Make your wish._

 

Red, beautiful hair. Forever.

 

A simple wish, meant to get her close.

 

With a violent streak of glee, Betty grants their desire, with a _twist_. One that will keep them yearning. Keep them feeding her with their thirst.

 

Horrified, Rose screams when she finds a mirror, all her hair except one streak a faded gray shroud.

 

Maggots crawl up from their family garden, their cemetery full of worms.

 

Rose’s son Clifford’s hair keeps growing, requiring near-shaving almost every few days, his body growing weak until he has enough to make wigs enough for the rest of his life, and then the hair just…stops. His heart aches and throbs in shame. Betty thinks they deserve it, to _want_.

 

The Blossoms enlist some witches to protect the estate, but it’s not often the Blossoms can afford to protect themselves once they leave it. They become all but shut-ins in their gothic mansion, and Betty eventually turns her attention elsewhere. It’s not as if they can truly summon her for their bidding. She has more fun playing with other dreams in town anyway. Justice is delicious, but it doesn’t sustain her.

 

~~

 

Emotion is brewing, and she can _smell_ it. The fierce iron of blood mixed with the steady promise of wood. She’d smelled something similar years ago. Sifting through the air, she tracks it to a school, where a boy with a bruised cheek and crown-edged hat strikes matches to watch the sparks.

 

_Hello_ , she says, wriggling as a curl of smoke.

 

The little boy’s eyes pop wide open. His grip tightens and bends the matchbook. He’s probably too young to have such a powerful thing, but she likes the way his heart reads. Passionate, observant, just, and determined. Spotting her has dimmed his rage, and now his soul is filled with wonder. As smoke, she curls around and brushes his cheek. _Such a beautiful boy_ , she thinks.

 

As he strikes the match to see her again (she knows, she _knows_ his heart), she reaches for his eyes to help him see. Jolting back, the boy drops the matches, the brush below them catching. To protect his feet from the flames, Betty pushes him back with the force of a large gust of wind, and the fire climbs higher.

 

The blue in the boy’s eyes goes smokey, like glassy stone. He scrambles away, his strong heart thumping wildly in his chest while his legs carry him the rest of the way to safety.

 

_Goodbye, little prince,_ she thinks, not unkindly, and dances in the fire until her feet grind it into ash.

 

~~

 

A rumble and shiver of her shelf awakens her in the closet, the sliver of light snuffed out by the figure of a man shutting himself in the dark. As she rises out of her blacked-out state (she could’ve been asleep for hours or days, but she’s not terribly hungry), she fumbles for his heart to squeeze. There’s a crust under his nose, smeared on his fist. Iron and blood. Salt-coated cheeks. The boy is heaving with emotion.

 

It’s her boy, she realizes, as the outline becomes clearer. The one with the matches.

 

_Boy_ , she wants to say, coiling upwards to embrace him. _It’s me. I’m here._

 

Others of her kind are not always sympathetic. But she knows…or she _knew_ what it was to be lonely. To desire a companion. A like spirit. Somewhere safe. However, being in her old pack had sometimes felt like a step away from binding her hair and belonging to someone. That’s why she found Riverdale. A place she could play, be herself. Even if she was alone in enjoying who that person was.

 

_Oh, my little prince,_ she coos, her wispy hands threading through the inky tendrils just-barely peeking out from under his ridged crown hat _. What does your heart desire?_

 

A vicious face snuffed out by the light. 

 

_Oh,_ she slithers, pleasantly surprised. _I know him._

 

The boy lets her into his mind, flashes of hatred and shame flushing through him and inciting her. Only one of the stresses she recognizes on a deep level, so she decides to collect on a debt.

 

_I will handle him, darling. You rest. You rest._

 

Her oily fingers stroke his cheeks, leaving a little smudge. A blessing, perhaps. Betty waits until his sniffling subsides, and slips away amidst the shadows to find her mark.

 

_Ja-son Bloss-om_ , she sings to herself, scanning hearts for him as she goes. There are glimpses of memories. Of lies. Of bullying. Or jealousy and want. _Arrogance_ , yes. The memories lead her to the pool, where she lurks near the unnatural water until a boy with a weak heart and fluid desire, a friend of Jason’s, comes through. She slips inside his body with ease.

 

Coughing, spitting up, the body barely resists her. It’s a jumble of emotions that she’s used to sorting and ignoring. _Shame. Nerves. Desire to fit in. Desire to be loved._ Typical teenager, even for someone like him who looks like he has it all.

 

Usually, when she takes her own form she has more fluid motion. Being in possession of someone else is always tight and painful. _This_ body is jerky and meaty, and she steers it through the halls until she finds the willowy, pale form of the cursed, arrogant heir to the Blossom throne.

 

“Come to Sweetwater River,” her voice echoes under her host’s.

 

“Oh, I see. You wanna bring some girls this time? Or should it just be us guys?”

 

Her host trembles. “Whatever you want.”

 

She senses her boy in the hall and turns to smile at him, but he doesn’t see, and her host is confused by the gesture. Her boy’s head is down, headphones on, so he can block everything out. There’s smoke in his heart. Smog, almost. She’ll clear that up in no time, or maybe dance with it later when his desire’s been sated.

 

In her host’s body, she eats her fill of meat in the cafeteria so she will have strength at the river. People laugh about her _athlete’s_ appetite, apparently only matched by _Jughead’s_. She’s not sure who _Jughead_ is, and wonders if he’s a jinn. But that wouldn’t make much sense. _Human_ , she decides. An unusual human.

 

When Jason arrives at the river, she tempts him far enough away from his car that any lingering protective spells won’t affect them.

 

The boys shed their clothes without any influence. There’s a conflicted stirring in her host’s body.

 

As they get into the water, her spirit seeps out of her host. The boys splash and play and laugh, braying in their rowdiness, and she dances under their spindly limbs, enjoying the way their hair floats in suspension under the surface and clings to their skin when combined with the air. Like a tide, she snaps the boys under the water, allowing them to sputter to the surface. They wipe their faces and look around, wondering. She hooks a hand around Jason’s ankle. Nothing burns, so either his protective salves have washed off or he hasn’t been minding Rose’s warnings about what their family owes, what lurks in the river. Betty drags him into the stony depths of Sweetwater, his friend nothing but a distorted, horrified ripple in the distance.

 

_Justice_ , she hisses as bubbles against his skin.

 

Squirming, muscles butterflying, he works his way to the surface.

 

“Jason?!” Her former host calls worriedly. “Maybe we should—”

 

There isn’t time. Betty worms her way into Jason’s lungs, choking on her until he gasps, flailing back underwater in the hope he can flush his obstruction out.

 

His friend tries swimming closer to help, but she shoves him off with a wave and takes Jason deeper into the river. She could drown him, if she was feeling particularly malevolent, but as his eyes redden and his lungs fill with water, she senses _fear_. _Deep fear. Regret. The desire to change._

 

_Ah,_ she coos, stroking his neck with a warm current. _Perhaps I’ll let you live._

 

Perhaps the line so close to death opens his perspective, because he senses something, his whole skeleton slamming outwards in a scream at his heart’s projection of a girl. Love? The vicious face isn’t his any longer. She can let go. In a flurry of bubbles, Betty hauls him up to the surface where the boys sputter and vomit as they weep, “I’m sorry.”

 

Betty hums in satisfaction and floats on the river for a while, losing herself to time, to the mist, until she can sense her boy and how his desire will change. To her surprise, the sun eerily stark on his skin, reflected on his crisp, white clothes, Jason Blossom kneels by the river. Praying. A book in his hands. She lurks below the surface, wondering if he’ll try to cast a spell. Or if he’s here to marry death.

 

“I’m sorry,” he says, and gently edges the book into the river. Eyes rimmed with the reflection of raw blood vessels, he sits by the river bed, dirtying his pristine pants, elbow resting on his knee while he contemplates what she reads as his mortality. His family.

 

The book is his spite. It sinks, slobbery ink running and puffing in its pages, even as she flips through. It’s a nice gesture, and she swims up to the water’s edge and waits as his heart continues to ache. After a while, she moves into mist, and this time when her hand goes to his ankle, it’s in comfort.

 

_Thank you_ , he weeps. _I’m sorry._

 

She doesn’t speak to him. A silent companion of fog, for which he seems grateful.

 

At length, she grows weary, hungry. “You can take…what was owed,” he whispers, rolling up his pant leg.

 

Betty takes a more physical form, studying the way his whole expression tightens as she approaches.

 

His blood tastes like maple syrup and cherries, and maybe a purer version of the river. Balanced. Fine. She doesn’t kill him, although a lazy part of her wonders if she should do it anyway, now that he’s been redeemed. Maybe he’ll go to a good place. She drinks her fill and licks the wound, her eyes flashing up to meet his as he pales even further and swallows in reverence. _A handsome boy,_ she thinks. _Maybe he’ll make a worthy man._

 

She slides back into the river as a current, leaving a single ripple behind. As Jason shivers on the riverbed, she travels upstream in search of a place to rest.

 

~~

 

It’s strange when people _think_ of her, because the closer the proximity, the easier it is for her to tell. Rose reminisces fairly often, as does the little girl, Penelope, although her memory is so faint that it barely registers as a distant whisper. Jason’s memories are sharp, quickly released with a tiny resolution to avoid punishment.

 

The boy, _her_ boy, as she’s come to think of him, ponders her slowly. No real _image_ , but her _feeling_. He starts lighting fires in barrels, looking up at the sky in the hopes he’ll understand. Shutting himself in a closet. He leaves her a note where she rested, once.

 

_I don’t know what or who you are, or if you’re even real, but thank you._

 

Pleased, she wishes she could do something with it. Make it a part of her. A genuine thank you. The maw of darkness swallows her for a while, and she rests in a dark place. His desire was to thank her, and he did.

 

Crazed men with dirty clothes burrow into her hovel, and when she slams them back by moving the earth, they _worship_ her.

 

_Stop it_ , she wants to hiss, and watches in slightly irritated horror as they hunt deer and sacrifice it to her in their desire to _see_ , their desire for _chaos_. She likes the meat, but not the sacrifice. They seek her power. To feed on it. Live by it.

 

She doesn’t like it when people seek her. Although she ignores her boy’s quiet whispers that ask if she’s out there (because of course she is, but it’s risky to slither out in front of her crazed followers), when she senses him desolate and alone, she crawls out of the Ghoulies’ den and makes her way to a projection booth as the fog that slips everywhere in town.

 

Her boy.

 

Light flickers amidst particles for a show, humans encased in steel and each other littering the yard. Large groups and metal casings make her feel prickly, but she ignores her anxiety and hovers just outside the booth. She’s never helped one person so much before. But he’s her… _friend_ , maybe.

 

He stares at a photo of a little girl and him as a little boy, both of their smiles missing teeth but abundant in childlike glee.

 

It’s family, most likely. There’s not the same familiarity of a friend. From observation, he doesn’t have a mate. He’s still young, isn’t he? Although he does seem virile. But he’s sad. He wants to see the little girl again. She settles over his shoulder as particles of light and feels him stiffen. _He knows,_ somehow. Probably because all this metal around them makes her weaker.

 

_Your heart’s desire?_ Betty prods, drifting forward with the intent to blanket him in comfort.

 

The answer is murky, but she thinks he has an idea.

 

_Do you trust me?_

 

He nods into the emptiness.

 

Betty wraps her arms around him with a body made for hugging, and waits until his eyes are closed before transporting them to a bedroom where the girl is sleeping.

 

He gasps, stumbling out of her embrace and onto a chair opposite the young girl.

 

He seems torn between looking at his family and at Betty’s physical form, so she makes the decision for him and melts into shadow to let him focus on what he wants while she can recuperate her energy from such a jump. There’s so much _metal_ nearby. It makes her nauseous, acid on her tongue, but the boy’s overwhelming desire and gratefulness helps mute it.

 

The ashen quality of his face blends into rosy hues as he looks upon the girl in her bed. He reaches out and grasps her small hand with his large one. Betty’s never noticed how lovely his fingers are, and wonders that he doesn’t play an instrument. The girl in bed stirs, eyelashes fluttering, until they fully open, her mouth curling in a confused frown.

 

“Jughead?”

 

_Jughead!_ Betty remembers, the one with the appetite.

 

“Hey, Jelly,” he smiles, a beautiful, soft thing. It’s the first time Betty’s heard his voice and accidentally hums at the noise.

 

_Jelly_ lifts her head, not quite fully awake. “How are you…?”

 

“Hey, it’s okay. Don’t worry about it. I just missed you, and—” He chuckles, cutting himself off. “How are you? Mom treating you okay?”

 

“Yeah.” Her youthful cheek nuzzles against her pillow, assuming she’s still in a dream. “You should be here, for real sometime.”

 

A cavern of shadows hides his expression. “I wish I could be.” Betty’s gut tightens, trembles. _He could._

 

“I love you, Jellybean.” He strokes the glossy hair that twines down into a braid with a gentleness that makes Betty long for someone’s touch.

 

Jinn work best in pairs. Protected. But her coven is broken, unbound. Betty slides into a small form, something like a shadow cat so as not to scare the girl. Not quite real, but something the girl desires, something that can curl up next to her boy’s leg. She’s tired. She’s sad. She mewls.

 

Surprised, Jughead lifts up his elbow and looks at her. “Hey…”

 

She rubs her furry cheek along his leg, marking his jeans with more smoky signals that he’s hers. Protected. His tender caresses swirl into Betty’s side and face until she’s purring.

 

“You love her, huh?”

 

Both Jughead and Betty snap their attention to the sluggish girl in bed. “She’s pretty. I’ve never seen you so dopey over something before.”

 

Jughead laughs, giant hand encapsulating Betty’s tiny body until she fades into a warm darkness.

 

When she awakes, it’s to a nuzzling sensation just behind her ears, an itch that has her lungs vibrating.

 

“Hey,” he whispers, “We need to get back.”

 

_Back?_

 

With a low growl, she blinks at the hazy rays of the sun.

 

“My mom…” He glances at the door, a tight wire squeezing around his heart. Unsure what it means, but wanting him happy, Betty rubs her cheek against his hand and meets his eyes for a few moments, her pupils expanding to keep him in her darkness.

 

And then, when he blinks…

 

She erupts in a fog, a grenade of inky blackness that wraps around them like a sphered web and wrenches them back onto a mattress in the projection booth.

 

With a strangled gasp, he falls back into the wall. Her form sputters and shivers, desperate to get away from so much metal and _rest_.

 

“W—wait,” he pants, fingers extended like he’s searching for her form in the dust of the earth. “Please. I want to thank you.” His gaze searches the room, desperate to land on her. “How do I do that?”

 

She doesn’t want to ask for blood or flesh, since he seems hungry too. And inviting him to be a mate as payment for his quick trip seems…untoward.

 

Betty lurks, shimmering in the shadows as she contemplates how to present, aware of the way his lips part and heart races every time she moves.

 

“Can I know your name?”

 

She bristles, hiding. He can’t have her power.

 

“Wait! I’m sorry! I don’t know…I don’t understand.” He shifts on the bed, eager to move, afraid to startle or offend her. “How can I…help you? Or thank you? Or just…know you?”

 

A heavy part of her drags a physical form into existence. Maybe it’s the idea of old Hollywood here at the drive-in, or maybe it’s Jughead, or maybe it’s just _her_ , but she’s a blonde with stylized wavy hair and pale skin, perhaps a beauty mark or two on her face.

 

Stunned, he stares at her, just as starry-eyed as when he was little, although perhaps a little more slack-jawed.

 

“Are you…an angel?” he manages, eyes flitting up and down her form.

 

She laughs, a human-sounding thing.

 

Frowning, he creeps towards her. “No? What, then? A…” His gaze lingers on her feet before hesitantly settling back on her eyes. “A demon?”

 

Smiling, she shakes her head. This is a fun game. A strange, sweet thing. Just like him. Cushioning her tailbone with her hands, Betty leans against some boxes, luring him closer.

 

“How can I find you?”

 

_Keep you_ , she hears his heart keen. She inhales, tensing at the thought of being bound to an object, a person. Being with a jinn means feeding off of each other’s desires and grantings. But with a human? They _take_ from jinn, milk and devour them for every ounce of their own pleasure. They can, anyway, which is why jinn are supposed to stay a safe distance away lest a human forcibly bind them to something. Even his soft crown has it’s prickly pins. This whole booth is cheap metal, even the concrete floor with its iron supports a risk she shouldn’t be taking. For a moment, he looks young, wide-eyed and scared, but also _possessed_ in a way that she hasn’t seen him before. He’s almost manic.

 

He _loves_ her.

 

Tilting her head, Betty listens closer to his heart. He’s seeking to _honor_ her. As if it’ll make him _deserving_.

 

But humans are weak, and she won’t let him use her or call her like a pet, the same way she only graces the boys with skulls on their backs with her presence when it’s on her terms.

 

She pops in front of Jughead, close enough to feel his nose brush hers in surprise. He stares, eyes flickering to her lips.

 

“Your…your eyes…they’re like Venetian Glass.”

 

Delighted that he even knows what that is, she grins. _What do you see?_

 

“Color. Beauty. It’s changing,” he murmurs, transfixed despite the words she popped into his brain.

 

She’s curious what she’ll sound like because it’s never really mattered. Language itself has rarely mattered to her. Just facts and feelings.

 

“What else, little prince?”

 

He swallows, gaze drawn to her lips again. “You’re real.”

 

Her smile is full of shiny, human teeth. _Hers_. For now.

 

His gaze flickers nervously over her skin. “Can I touch you?”

 

“Allow me,” she offers, somewhere between a human voice and a foggy one, tracing her fingers along the side of his face. His eyes drip closed in relief, practically shivering under her touch. Perhaps she’s cold. He doesn’t pull away, so she keeps doing it. Slender fingers brace her elbow as if she needs help to stand.

 

_You’re feeling better_ , she notes, wondering how easily he can hear her when she doesn’t speak in this form.

 

“You always know when I need you,” he whispers, and this time when his eyes open she’s momentarily transfixed by how deep his darkness goes, the smoky edges of gray and blue swirling at the edge of his pupils.

 

Maybe she could need him too.

 

Tonight.

 

Ever-so-gently, she plies him with a kiss. He’s soft, reciprocating, so focused on connecting with her that her form tingles.

 

“Would you like to… _know_ me?”

 

His voice is almost a sigh. “Yes.”

 

He shuffles back onto the mattress, nearly falling over himself in an attempt to keep her with him, even though she’s practically floating. “Are you sure?”

 

“ _Yes_.”

 

He kisses her as if he can feed her his soul through transference. It’s nice this way, his hands tentatively creeping up into her hair, his body arching to connect with hers. Most humans, when approached for sex, want something quick and dirty and selfish. It’s nothing she finds particularly arousing. Perhaps it’s because she hasn’t had a partner in quite some time, and craves some kind of emotional intimacy when paired with a mate. Maybe that’s why she lurks in darkness, where she can rest instead. In the dark, it doesn’t matter if she’s alone. She might not even know.

 

But Jughead feels nice.

 

She almost feels guilty for climbing on him. There’s no move to peel away clothing, to be bare. They get comfortable, his hands at the base of her neck, hers cleaving into his shirt to keep him close. He’s learning. Pressure, pace. Exactly what she wants, exactly how she wants it. She’s in his lap, up on her knees to avoid pressing into his denim seam.

 

His heart, he’s giving willingly. His body… _only so much_.

 

Eventually, when her lips are wet and her knees are sore, Betty pulls back.

 

“What?”

 

“I have to go.”

 

“No,” he despairs, massaging her shoulder. “Was this not…was I not…enjoyable?”

 

“Little prince, you were wonderful,” she promises, kissing his rosy lips. “But I can only take what’s freely given.”

 

His brow furrows, eyes shining. “I can give…”

 

“No. Not yet, you can’t. And that’s fine. I need to go.”

 

“Wait,” he pleads, following her as she stands, his heart beating wildly in his chest. “When can I see you again?”

 

Demands make her angry, but at least he’s _asking_. Understands he can’t keep her. Fears he can’t keep anything.

 

“When you need me,” she says. “Perhaps then.” With one last caress to his cheek, she feels her heart ache along a fissure, echoed in his, and disappears into the vents to stumble somewhere she won’t feel alone again. But she does. For a while, this time. She cries by Sweetwater River and can’t understand why.


	2. Together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The love goes even deeper in this chapter, but be forewarned this is still a dark fairy tale and there are some intense themes ahead

Moping about her sweet prince, Betty finds herself inactive for a time. She loses hours without the allure of shadows. Keeps itching to climb back into her human form and visit her boy. But she shouldn’t. He’ll try to keep her. She _knows_ that. And she’ll be tempted to stay, or feed, or mate. She knows the weakness of humans and of herself and wails. She tears at patches of grass and shoves them down the throats of those who disturb her.

 

Miserable, she sits at the edge of the river, not quite sure of her form, not even caring, wondering whether or not she should finally leave Riverdale and find a partner jinn. Someone who could understand. Who might help protect her from enslavement. From loneliness. But she cannot connect with a jinn when she so strongly desires her human little prince.

 

It feels particularly isolating sometimes. The power of magic, the urges of humans, yet no clear compass, moral or otherwise, other than the ability to read desire. She can still die, even without a concept of time. Be murdered. And bound.

 

Shivering, Betty presses her face into her forearms and sighs. All this power and she can’t even use it for herself, _really_ , because there’s not much that her heart wants. Except to feed. And maybe fuck. And _rest_.

 

A dull ache in her side reminds her that Jughead’s thinking of her. Sometimes he’s daydreaming, and slowly, as the weeks go by, she senses that he’s thinking of her while he’s _doing_ something. Masturbating, if the flashes of heat accompanied by the memory of her are any indication. He doesn’t always finish, and he always goes slow. Like maybe she’ll come to him. She doesn’t watch, just sits and listens to his thoughts.

 

One night she finally caves and clambers atop him mid-dream, the seventh of its kind, a lucky number. He wakes up on the drive-in mattress like he’s about to fight a battle, but once he sees it’s her, he surrenders. Everything’s in a blue-tinted dream. He reaches up and kisses her. This time, they bare each other’s chests and kiss and suckle and rut. Jughead tries to kick at the blanket separating them, but he doesn’t get it off in time before she has to go, sucking his lower lip for salvation despite the wet patches between their legs.

 

“I want you,” he swears.

 

“I know, I know.”

 

She plunges into the river and lurks there, ripping a fish to shreds with her teeth.

 

She wants him. But she shouldn’t. It’s dangerous to visit him there.

 

~~~

 

The next time she finds him, there’s a dull pain that seems white and round like a plastic tee ball in her mind. He’s in school. There are still metal coffins on all sides, but it should be safe. Taking physical form, she marches through the halls with just a hint of mist trailing under her feet, her hair bouncing with the same curling jubilance of smoke. Only a few stop and stare, able to make her out as a human girl. She gleefully approaches Jughead, sliding up against the wall and studying his furrowed brow as he flinches at the physical intrusion of his space.

 

_What ails you?_

 

Jughead blinks, memorizes the image of her before him, and gestures to the small viewfinder. As she peers through, their shoulders brush. “You always know when I need you,” he says ruefully.

 

It’s a woman and a boy. Holding hands? Betty’s too tired to read their hearts yet, but she wonders if it reminds him of them. If that’s why _she’s_ here. Longing.

 

“That boy is my best friend. I think…I’d like to help him.” His fist curled, he meets her eyes. “What do I have to…do?”

 

_Depends on what the help is._

 

Frowning, Betty tries reading the people in the room a bit better. The boy is thinking of music. The woman’s heart is… _awful_ , actually. Disgusted, Betty prickles into smoke.

 

“You might not want to do that here,” Jughead warns, fingers trickling down the slope of her spine.

 

She sends a particularly forceful gust that knocks the woman back a few feet. “Maybe I should stay awhile. Play.”

 

Perking up, Jughead seems conflicted with his own hope. “Yeah?”

 

Nodding firmly, Betty turns to face the halls, ignoring the gnawing hunger building inside of her. Following the visual cue of her former host passing in the halls and a petite girl, Betty slides her fingers into Jughead’s. At first, his hands straighten, but then he seems to relax into the idea of being able to hold on to her, at least temporarily. “You gonna go to class today?”

 

“Are you?”

 

“Maybe. Depends if that affects our time.”

 

_Our_ time, she notes, wondering.

 

She goes on autopilot through the halls, barely even aware of him guiding her elsewhere. People send them funny looks of curiosity and surprise. Jughead seems happy, if a little embarrassed. His palms feel warm and slightly sweaty in hers. “Is it okay for people to see you like this?”

 

She shrugs. It’s not like they know who or _what_ she is. They end up in the courtyard, the back of his finger lightly tracing her arm. Being in a physical form is strange sometimes. Little bumps prickle along her skin, but she doesn’t feel cold. Still, Betty snuggles up to her boy to absorb some of his heat.

 

“Where’s your favorite place in Riverdale?”

 

_Here_ , she supposes. Holding onto the past has never served her very well. It usually makes her angry or weak.

 

“Is that because of me?” he chuckles, the tips of his cheekbones slightly rosy, even though the undersides of his eyes are still bruised.

 

_Yes_ , she thinks, laying her cheek on his chest.

 

“I…then this will be my new favorite place too.”

 

She kisses him, their faces tucked into the privacy of their own bodies.

 

After an hour of talking, of easy questions, of simple answers, of kissing and cuddling, being in a human form wears on her.

 

“I have to rest,” she sighs, slightly sluggish.

 

“Do whatever you have to do. I’ll be here for you. You can rest on me.”

 

Her chin drifts forward, eyes hanging heavy, and she’s not sure what she is when she becomes a part of him. Only that she’s tethered, like they’re holding hands and floating in the river of oblivion.

 

~~~

 

A week later, Betty strangles Geraldine Grundy. She plays her throat like a violin, and all the woman keeps seeing is _victim, VICTIM!_ Horrible woman. Betty doesn’t kill her, but leaves her gasping and heaving on the floor, crumbling at her own self-image of being an old woman. As if youth and beauty are the only potential in life. The Sheriff _happens_ to hear the ruckus, to find the sprawling files and illegal weapons that fall all over the floor when he checks up on the hysterical woman.

 

Betty slinks back to the projection booth, even though she shouldn’t, and feels a strangely warm purr work her way through the smog as Jughead sits up in anticipation of her arrival.

 

“Can you stay?” he asks, a hopeful lilt to his voice.

 

“My sweet prince,” she sighs, half-ethereal as she reaches for his cheek. “I have granted your wish.”

 

Something twists inside of him, stretches, and then she _sees_ it. That he wishes for _her_.

 

“Juggie, _no…_ ” she begins, already drifting towards him.

 

“Please,” he begs. “Please don’t leave me this time. _Please_.”

 

They kiss, sweet and tumultuous until they’re naked and scared. Her, of never being able to leave, him, of her leaving. He brings her to orgasm with his hand inside her body and her thoughts pouring into his. There’s a horrible moment she worries she’s become a literal puppet, but he comes just from the friction of having her on his lap, begging to know if it’s all right, if he can make it _good_.

 

Her body frizzles around the edges, eventually complying to lay in front of his. It doesn’t feel _quite_ like a prison. The bars of his arms are loose, she can easily sneak through, but finds she doesn’t want to. Unnerved, she wiggles closer to his chest until his breathing evens out and they both fade into darkness.

 

During the day, she hunts. She’s not as hungry as him, not all the time. But it gives her something to do until lunch, when she meets him at the pines in her human form, experimenting with wardrobe, but not so much her face. He likes her face. Well, he likes all of her, _very_ much, but her face is what he often smiles at in that soft, quiet way that makes her insides thrum. The Blossom twins _notice_ them, their hearts thudding in a warning to stay away. Smart, probably. And Jughead laughs and tells her how everyone is shocked he got some “home-schooled” girlfriend.

 

“Does my vast knowledge tempt you?”

 

“No. I mean, sometimes, I guess. But I don’t need to know _everything_. I’d rather be able to understand it.”

 

With a thin-lipped smile, she leans forward and kisses him. It’s not that she doesn’t want to share her knowledge. It’s just…humans get a taste for it. They squeeze and _squeeze_ until nothing’s left. Startled by the way her thighs clench over his, Jughead moves her off his lap.

 

“We can’t have sex _here_ ,” he blusters. “That’s private.”

 

_Right._

 

Cowed, Betty sits on the grass and raises her knees up to her chest.

 

Jughead clears his throat, sitting back to rest on his palms. “Hey. Is it okay…if I can’t have your real name, if we come up with _something_ to call you?”

 

_Why?_

 

She knows when he’s calling to her.

 

“For…other people. When they ask about you. Or when I want to tell them something. Like, I can’t go out, because I have a girlfriend.”

 

A flash of jealousy flares through her. _Who’s asking him out?_

 

“No one,” he blushes, skewing away so she can’t quite read his heart other than that he’s embarrassed.

 

_Do they need a name?_

 

“Kinda, yeah,” he chuckles, nudging his crown.

 

Pondering, she wraps grass around her thumb and rips at the roots until the whole frayed thing comes loose.

 

_Betty_.

 

He blinks, surprised, and she’s not sure if he’s heard. She’s too nervous to repeat it. Those of her kind don’t really share their names. It’s never needed in their circles with the way they communicate. They usually presume it’s safer to stay anonymous, to be able to fade away instead of snatched and bound.

 

But she wants Jughead to be able to refer to her as more than a feeling. 

 

Maybe they could use Jeannie? Or…what other human names are there that might make sense? She sighs. That’s so on-the-nose. Like if she called him _human_ instead of _my prince_ or _Jughead,_ _my boy_.

 

Not that she really has anyone she’d like to talk to besides him.

 

“Are you _my girl_?”

 

She’s not sure she can belong to someone without being bound. But _yes,_ she decides. _Probably._

 

He doesn’t ask her for another name and leads her to the privacy of their closet to make her come. Her arms feel heavy, part of her jerking upwards in bursts of smoke that thankfully he can’t see, even if he can feel her weight change around his shoulders. They stay in the dark, her form dripping between, but always warm against him.

 

“I love you, Jughead.”

 

“I love you too,” he whispers, arms cradling her against him.

 

~~~

 

_It’s time_ , she thinks, a trembling in her bones and a curve in her smoke as she approaches the Twilight. He’s gotten used to her non-human methods of transportation, even when they walk together, so when she appears at the foot of the bed, his eyes are full of moonlight instead of wonder, and he wordlessly puts his hands out to her.

 

She crawls into his lap and they hold each other, his heartbeat strong and steady in her ear.

 

“Would you like to mate with me?”

 

He chuckles against her hairline. “You sound so formal.”

 

“It is formal.”

 

She feels the slightest bit of moisture from his teeth as he smiles. “Okay, yes. I would formally like to mate with you.” As she shifts back to disrobe, his heart hesitates.

 

“What?”

 

“I just…” His eyes dart to a side table. “I’m not sure…do we need protection?”

 

A chasm she hadn’t even considered lays before her.

 

“Maybe just to be safe, since I don’t know what I’m getting into. Have you…with a human…before?”

 

She frowns, tempted to sneak into the drawer, into his heart. The idea of mating with her is pleasant to him, but not the idea of bearing children. Not _yet_. It’s up to her to decide if that’s enough for now.

 

He twists a foil package open, stopping when she recedes from him. “It’s all right,” he tells her, not even knowing why she’s truly wary. “This is just a latex glove that goes on me so I don’t end up a teen dad.”

 

Drifting forward, she lays her head on his shoulder. Perhaps she can’t get pregnant anyway if he’s not willing to give it. She considers telling him, but he’s already naked, already rolling on the somewhat murky-looking instrument and stroking himself with a resignation to do her _well_.

 

“My beautiful prince,” she sighs and takes him inside of her with a kiss.

 

~~~

 

The river is still hers. When Jughead’s in school, she bathes and eats and rests, but only in short bursts. If she sinks too far into the darkness, Jughead gets anxious, his heart tense and stretched like the days are longer without her. His teeth chatter sometimes until she appears and kisses his neck, soothes him with her lullabies.

 

She spends more days than not curled up around or by his side, enjoying human things like showering in a tight space, his naked body pressed to hers, hands snaking along each other’s ribs while giggles fill the bathroom. Sucking his skin gives her the oddest half-thought of a story he wants to write. She lets him work, drumming her fingers on the counter at Pop’s and pretending to steal his milkshake, other times receding into the fog and chaos until she’s frenzied and can barely feel his desire for her pulsing into the night.

 

“I wish my dad was sober,” he mumbles into her neck one day. Her body vibrates, pulsing with the urge to grant it. But she can’t _belong_ to him. Still, she knows who his father is, a lurker at the Twilight. He’s handsome. He’s seen her before, his glassy, dark eyes narrowing like he’s not sure if she’s an illusion. 

 

It’s easy to find him, his eyes burned with red, body swaying until he can barely even see. There are _so_ many ways to make him avoid alcohol. He already hates it. Loves it. Betty hums, sliding onto the stool next to him, trying to look more adult as a human. He’s so far gone that there’s a moment he still doesn’t seem sure if she’s there.

 

“How’s it taste?” she grins, her voice all smoke and poison.

 

FP takes his drink, letting it sting all the way down like a toxic spear spider-crawling into his gut. There’s regret there, but no resolve.

 

What would guilt taste like to a human?

 

Certain things are awful but can learn to be swallowed. Curious, she twists his taste buds until they bubble a little. The man sputters but swallows the next sip, still ignoring her. She smiles, planting her elbow on the bar and propping up her chin as he trembles a little, forcing another sip into his mouth.

 

The bitterness is too much, and he sputters and coughs, choking. “What the hell is this?” The bartender’s wrist wavers, frowning at FP like he knows it’s time to throw him out and stop milking him for cash.

 

“I want another one. This tastes like…shit,” he decides on, knowing very well where that iron sticking to his tongue comes from. Desiring a sting to his brain, his body.

 

“Last call, FP.”

 

_Last call,_ she reminds him, husky as engine exhaust. Maybe she should make alcohol taste of motor oil.

 

Maybe later. She drifts in and around the bar, reading the room, deciding if she wants to eat.

 

FP sputters and spits the drink all over the table.

 

“You need to go,” the man behind the bar insists.

 

Swinging wildly, FP pushes down the stool in an attempt to get up. “That _drink_ is _blood_! That’s bullshit! That’s _bullshit_. I paid my time! Gimme that. Let me have it.” Betty dances, swaying with the bass as FP reaches for his friend’s beer, gagging and spitting it up the moment he tries to swallow. “You’re all drinking blood! It’s not _fair!_ It’s not--”

 

A sharp ring goes through the bar, and FP spins, dazed, just a hint of actual blood on his teeth. He falls. Betty only stays long enough to make sure he’ll get back up, and then, at least, he looks in her eyes, and sobers.

 

~~~

 

Sleeping next to Jughead is peaceful, even amidst the metal and flickering lights. She can hear his heartbeat, his grateful, sweet, strong heart steady under her ear.

 

“I love you,” she whispers, stroking his body, enjoying his warmth, not fully sure if she should cool him with her mist.

 

In his sleep, he doesn’t want for anything. Nothing except to keep being with her.

 

Her form edges, curling closer around him even as he holds her tighter. She feels heavy, grounded to his heart. His desire.

 

_I love you_ , she repeats, weaving. _I love you._

 

It’s hard for her to remember why she won’t bind to him when he’s so willing to follow her. He never _takes_. Such a good, beautiful heart. _I love you_.

 

If she could just bind right into his heart, that would be something else. Something that wouldn’t leave her vulnerable. Eventually, he’d decompose. She’d be free.

 

The thought sobers her. His mortality. How time will shave him away from her. That one day she’ll come out of the dark and he won’t be here reaching out for her. No one might ever be like him again. She’s almost sure of it.

 

So maybe…

 

Wiping away the moisture under her eyes, Betty sits up, Jughead automatically adjusting to let her move. _The crown_ , she thinks. He has suspenders, but they seem less important to him. Hold less of his heart, less of hers. _His crown_ , though. Her little prince.

 

She looks down, checking him once again. The soft warmth of his breath tickles her wrist, and a tenderness sifts through her like a geyser emitting steam, her lips pressing against his as if she can funnel it to him somehow. He stirs, waking, immediately wrapping around her, opening his mouth, giving himself to her. There’s no latex, no hesitancy, no real desire for a child, but no real aversion to one either. Just each other. Just what they want. They make love slowly, her fingers carding through his hair as she imagines her soul sitting upon his like a crown. The trace of her fingers at his brow. A blessing. A promise.

 

Crying out, she tightens around him, his body emptying into hers.

 

_I love you. I’ll stay with you_ , she promises.

 

“Love you...forever…” he murmurs, falling back into blissful, simple sleep. That’s what he wants. Forever. Maybe she can give him herself, at least for _their_ forever, without the fear of being passed on to someone else. Someone less deserving, less wholesome.

 

She reaches over him to his crown, gently unlatching one of the pins without removing it entirely. The prick is jarring, not-quite painless. For a moment, despite the sharpness, she wonders if it happened. But then the little droplet swells and sticks and she knows she’s been wounded beyond the continual hissing burn of the metal in her hand. As her blood sets, she burns the wound closed and refastens the pin to his crown. A part of him. Now, a part of her.

 

Bound. Not to a master, but to her prince.

 

~~~

 

He’s happy. _So_ happy. And she’s strangely even more grounded than before, able to go longer periods without passing out or needing rest. Feeding becomes less of a violent need. Just Jughead.

 

“You’re a miracle,” he tells her, forearms low on her back as he lifts and swings her around until she’s giggling and clinging to him like she’s a kite about to be flung into the air.

 

Her heart’s so full she almost forgets to keep searching for others. The sharp prodding that feels like it could derail her. Jason, under the river. Afraid. _Terrified_. His sister, clenching her teeth, her arms across her chest, scrutinizing them.

 

Something doesn’t feel right.

 

“I’d like you to meet my best friend, Archie. Well, properly, anyway. Is that okay?” Jughead asks, his voice catching. His heart reads of a future, of Archie and him in an apartment, or a home, of her resting in Jughead’s room. Smiling when he comes home. Cuddling. Empty moments where Archie asks if she wants anything to eat and Jughead taking her portion to be consumed in the room.

 

He wants a _life_ with her. A future. However short it may seem.

 

“All right.”

 

It’s the boy with the music in his heart. The songbird. Betty’s heart aches, remembering another one crumpled by a cruel woman, and she reaches forward to give this one a hug. A pleasant thought. A bit of flight.

 

He’s beaming, the little songbird. Archie likes her. Not that it matters, but it makes Jughead happy, his teeth showing in his smile, fingers playing at the criss-cross straps of her dress.

 

“I’ve never seen Jug so happy,” Archie tells her, and she has half a mind to say, _I know_.

 

Instead, Jughead pulls her back into his side and kisses the side of her forehead, making her blush. “It’s nice to meet you,” she says, and it is.

 

Archie writes them a song based on his inspiration, Jughead grinning the whole time they listen, his hand squeezing and kneading her shoulder like she’s the one who put the work into it.

 

_I love you_ , she says, silently, along to the song.

 

When he looks over at her, a soft expression on his face, she feels it in the pulse of his veins.

 

~~~

 

His father trembles, watching her from afar, still not sure if that night at the Wyrm was a dream. If his violent illness is because of divine intervention, a curse, or his brain. Poison does that to people. It warps them. But he’s healing, and Jughead seems satisfied, if not _pleased_ , that he’s getting better.

 

There’s no need to meet FP formally yet. Jughead feels anxious under his father’s scrutiny, and urges her further into the booth, away from the viewing window and its flickering light. She likes Jughead’s stories, the ones he plays for everyone, the ones he writes. Playing with him is her favorite. Being with him makes her feel light and airy and grounded all at once.

 

“Do you trust me?” she asks, grinning at him in front of the river, warming it without his knowing.

 

“Always.”

 

Although he means it, he frowns at the body of water, at least until he hears her feet slip under the surface, soon followed by the rest of her. She wears a polka-dot bikini for him. Something cute. But his eyes are fixed to her face, mouth hung slightly open, and he shifts out of his clothes until he’s just in boxers and follows her into the water, amazed by how fast she can circle him. They laugh, they swim. She wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him deeply, stealing the air out of his lungs until he’s dizzy, hands at her waist.

 

They don’t mate in the water. Eventually, their legs pushing off nothing, she takes him against a bank, lets their feet and tongues tangle for almost an hour until their bodies are sore and tingling.

 

“You’re amazing,” he tells her, arms still encasing her shoulders while hers wrap around his neck.

 

_Bound_ , she sighs, not even surprised by how happy she feels, his hat on the bank, her chest against his.

 

_Bound._

 

~~~

 

His father urges him to ride steel. A bonding experience. She shivers when they pass by the river, the woods, part of her wanting, almost _needing_ to follow, the other, preserving what strength she has left. Hungry, _ravenous_ , she slips through the woods. The men with skulls are still sleeping in their den of smoke, and though she knows they’d feed her willingly, she wants something else. Something better.

 

She slips through the town’s mist, her stomach twisting at the unusual sweet smell that accompanies it. It’s so poignant that she can’t even finish her meal, the urge to retch climbing up her neck. Something’s burning. Something metallic? Natural? It’s strange, and she can’t pin it down, can’t imagine stomaching it enough to seek its source.

 

Her boy isn’t thinking of her, the wind at his face. But she’s thinking of him. Hurting. She feels tired, so tired, and wonders if she was hungry at all or maybe just sick. The only way to escape the smell is underwater, but it’s so cold down there, so dark. She might lose him. Might lose _days_. Shivering, she stutters into the projection booth, seeking her boy and unable to really find him, the pins she bound to glowing hot but not speaking to her, not through the fog.

 

_Hello,_ she calls to him, just wanting to know where he is, what he desires.

 

Her shoulder scrapes along the projection booth wall, the drywall a thin shield from what can truly burn her. Still, she feels her skin shifting off in smoke at her arm.

 

_Help_ , she thinks dully, buckling towards the mattress on the floor. _My boy._

 

_My prince._

 

She’s trying so hard to call him, her whole chest swirling in steam and smoke, when a small object lands in the booth with a thud.

 

_Metal_ , she realizes, and jerks back just as it erupts into tiny pieces, spewing pain across her skin and vomiting incense into the air.

 

Covering her mouth, she struggles back against the wall, desperate to change, to escape. A bug would be too small. Suffocated. Maybe a bird? A cat? A dog?

 

Just as her legs start to shift in the smoke, her body crawling towards the door, a sharp figure emerges, a flash where their hands should be.

 

_Jughead…?_

 

It can’t be him, but she tries talking to him anyway. Not that she could hear a response through the ringing in her ears.

 

“Hello again,” a man says, shoving her neck back with a hay bale that burns a stripe along her flesh, erupting her voice into screaming steam.

 

The voice is distantly familiar. Changed.

 

Her eyes water, stinging, even as her hands reach up to pull the iron back from her neck. A matching figure joins him. “Get her wrists.”

 

_No_ , she thinks desperately, her lower half scrambling to transform the rest of her, despite the fog in her brain.

 

Something snaps, scraping her skin.

 

_No!_ She wails, kicking out with her foot and a gust of wind. One of the men falls back with an _oof_ , bruised but not broken. Her palms burn, boiling, struggling to break free or fall into shadow in this metal prison.

 

But they manage to get one band on, her wrist _screaming_ before falling into numb pain. Horrified, she cries, “Please! Don’t!” Her voice is human without any semblance of mist.

 

While her other limbs kick out, her bound hand is trembling, totally numb, prickling in its forced physicality and nearness to the metal on its skin.

 

_Enchanted._

 

It’s the Blossoms. It has to be.

 

Betty screams, the pitch of it crackling blood in the room, or maybe that’s her nails at their throats, their eyes. But all too soon the darkness encumbers her, and her wrists and ankles are bound in thick manacles without mercy. Her whole body is numb, tingling, her world on fire with nowhere to escape.

 

“ _Help me_ ,” she sobs, her voice already threadbare, the booth misty and _wrong_ as a gold and ruby choker moves towards her.

 

_Bound._

 

And then there’s swirling, horrible darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know. I know. How dare I? But honestly, can you imagine the Blossoms knowing that a magical being is in town and not trying to harness it? Neither can I. Betty's bound to Jughead, though, even if he doesn't quite know it yet. How do we feel? Let me know in the comments! You know how I thrive on them ^-^


	3. Bound

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up: jinn is Arabic, djinn is Roman, and genie is the anglicized version of the basic category of what Betty is, so whichever you or I use, we're on the same page of what it means, yes?
> 
> Also, the Blossoms are the worst. Unsurprisingly. Just be prepared for it.

Maybe her screaming makes them happy. The empty, keening sound that tears her throat and barely emits a high-pitched keen. Her feet that drag and stumble under her. Misting is the only real way she can move gracefully, and even then, only a few feet at a time.

 

Rose’s heart is happy to watch her suffer. Her son, Clifford, and his cap of dead red hair seems content. There’s a twin, one with natural gray threaded in his mane, who seems mostly nervous about the whole thing. About keeping her in the greenhouse with its glass windows and metal bars like a wild bird in a cage.

 

The first few days she won’t stop screaming or trying to escape long enough for them to demand a wish. They talk amongst themselves, sipping strange tea, her own cup stained and rimmed with blood.

 

Rose catches her glare, and with a prim little smile says, “I like your hair.”

 

Shoulders tensing, Betty retches into a bush.

 

The blonde locks that Jughead loves to stroke are bound by thick gold bands, the hair underneath pushed up into a ball before the next tie is in place so there are five extra places for her back and scalp to burn.

 

Vibrating, they keep whispering to themselves, asking when it’s time.

 

When she refuses to cooperate, they lift her hair, carving a rune into the base of her neck with a sharp little knife while her elbows jerk back in a useless panic against the strong arms on either side of her, the metal stinging with every stroke.

 

Fire and blood burn under her eyes, and her blood boils with the urge to grant desires, to funnel her power, magic erupting like lava in her veins.

 

“She’s not binding to the brooch, Mother.” Claudius sighs as if she is nothing more than an annoying _thing_ to be dealt with.

 

Misty eye twitching, Rose waves them off. “We won’t worry about that now, boys. Let her grant our desires. It’s not like she can get far, anyway.”

 

And she does _need_ to. She gets hungry, gums receding in her human body, bones chattering as she suppresses the urge to _help_ them. Her teeth won’t even unclench enough to call for Jughead. She _can’t_. Not without releasing magic. Without easing desire.

 

Longing leaks out of her at night, salty tears stinging her raw, almost-human flesh. _Jughead_ , she begs. She’s _bound_ to him. Feels the warmth of his pins under her veins, the throbbing numbness of her broken wrists.

 

She beats at the ground, magic radiating off of her in convulsions, in hate, in desperation. Hair prickles out of Clifford’s scalp, making him itch and scratch, nearly, but not-quite celebrating the unpleasant sensation. His nails get coated with skin and blood and red hair, and his wife (his slave) tends carefully to him with lotions and salves to prevent any further rashing.

 

In the mind of Claudius, something unlatches, letting go of any and all responsibility. Orders. Mean words. Regrets. Obligation. All he has left is excitement, contentment. But his memory won’t latch onto anything else. He forgets what Nana Rose says to him almost instantly after she says it, wandering off into the orchards instead. Jokes around with Clifford. The ease of his mind, which frustrates others to no end, actually fulfills another desire. He smiles more than Clifford. Is instantly recognizable as himself just by his posture, the glow under his skin.

 

Rose waits, scowling, for her turn, while her much smarter grandson regards the greenhouse warily before tugging his curious sister away.

 

_Mobility. Freedom_. _Agency._

 

That’s what Nana Rose wants. Betty’s smile recedes, revealing a bloody smile. _Something in common_.

 

So Betty throbs, scratching crowns and stories into the ground to keep her company, draws runes on the misty greenhouse walls at night, hoping they will free her, even in her weakened state.

 

The most she gets is a dream after she’s dug a corner for herself that feels more like a grave. At least it seems like a dream because of the loud static in her ears. The way she doesn’t register walking. Just hears scratching at the outside, the fog of Riverdale. His voice is muted. _His_. Her prince. She can’t scream back, but she pounds on the glass, cries, claws, chasing what she thinks may be his shadow as her own prison fills up with that terrible scent from that day in the projection booth.

 

Her flesh squeaks against the glass, the panes rattling, and finally, he comes near, eyes sunken, a sickly pallor on his skin. His own gaunt figure seems to be stunned by her own, unable to move.

 

_The metal_ , she thinks, winding back, and slams her wrists down with all the strength she can muster. Jughead puts his hands upon the glass, and she’s tempted to stop slamming, to just fit her shadow against his own and reflect each other’s sadness.

 

_No_ , she determines, and uses all her sleepy limbs to slam again and again until the glass shatters, slicing her arms and his, sobbing in relief as the warmth of his flesh reaches past the iron rail and hauls her to him. But something warm and wet splutters on her shoulder, and when she backs up, Jughead’s chin drips in blood.

 

Betty awakens, gasping, to Nana Rose and Clifford by candlelight, streaking her runes and manipulating them with their own.

 

Rose seems unsurprised by her raging heart, by the way she crawls towards them, ready to kill and uproot.

 

“If you keep up this misbehavior, we’ll do worse to you and your little boyfriend than keep you apart. You understand? You belong to us, now. As long as we want you. And if your company and talents are no longer considered desirable, we will kill you. Just like an unwanted kitten.”

 

Clifford blinks, surprised at the metaphor, but nods, his face flickering by the candlelight.

 

There’s nothing to relieve the pit, the ache in Betty’s gut, except blood, and minor magic.

 

Rose sips her tea and Penelope pours, one nervous eye on her dirt-caked nails. Even Cheryl seems content to watch a pristine girl wearing their gold, her skin pink, her lips red. There’s some desire there, masked as appreciation for her power. But Cheryl likes the degradation as much as the elegance, and always begs them to let Betty dress and bathe in silken finery, gleeful when she dirties it in the garden when writing her stories or playing games. Their beautiful, unpredictable little pet.

 

A tiger in a playpen.

 

Betty thinks about Jughead almost constantly when she isn’t forced to play the good girl for the Blossoms. She grants enough, but not all, of their desires, enough to keep him safe. Her appearance of subservience does a lot to help their moods as it is. Clifford gleefully shows off his golf swing, the confidence of that prickly resurgent hair under his wig enough to make his game improve. Penelope just wants to work on her own projects and enjoys that Nana Rose and Cheryl seem occupied with the new pet. Left to her own devices, Penelope enjoys playing dress-up, finding new _outfits_ she wants Betty to try, flirting with men at Clifford’s games as a distraction. Being wanted. Being powerful. Affecting things.

 

Jason, as ever, stays away, only rarely meeting her gaze when he comes to get Cheryl for a game and cheerleading practice. They kiss on the cheek, holding hands, and Betty reads the fear in his heart.

 

“Don’t you want anything, JayJay?” Cheryl asks him, her white dress pleating prettily around her thighs.

 

“I just want to live a good life, Cher.”

 

“She can help us with that!”

 

“No,” he says, looking over his shoulder at her with regret. “That’s something we have to do ourselves.”

 

Less certain, Cheryl keeps asking Nana Rose questions, not sure what to ask for, what to want, why nothing’s happened to either of them yet. When everyone else goes to sleep, Cheryl creeps down in her bare feet and red silky nightgown with her beady black eyes level with Betty’s. Flickering next to the candelabra, she seems like a small, porcelain doll. A matching set for Jason.

 

“So you can read a heart’s desire, right?” Cheryl asks quietly, hair spilling over her shoulders. She’s shy, anxious in a way that’s less like a tremble and more like a roar. “Do I not...do I not have one?”

 

It’d almost be funny. Or sad. Or _something_ , but Betty’s so exhausted and in pain that she just rolls her neck along the burning collar, wishing she could feel more than the simple fact that Jughead’s _alive_ , his heartbeat somewhere in her gut when she thinks of him hard enough.

 

Cheryl’s gaze flickers down to the collar. “Oh is that...is that hurting you? You can’t speak with it on, right?” Betty nods, curious how far her disregard of rules will take them.

 

Taking a deep breath, Cheryl reaches behind Betty’s neck, her expression somber. “You have to promise not to curse me or whatever. Nor JayJay. I just want to know what you see in my heart. If I...if I have one.”

 

Betty nods, her limbs heavy and stiff.

 

With her strong red nails, Cheryl flicks the collar open, slides it partially off her neck, as if she’s waiting for Betty to try and bite, a reason to push it back in place. Impassive, Betty stares at her, waiting for her to pull it all the way off. After a few beats, the collar slides away, and Betty is finally free to take a breath. Grateful, she sobs, tears streaking down her face. Cheryl’s so alarmed that she actually drops the golden collar, rubs Betty’s shoulder and whispers, “Hey, it’s okay. You’ll be okay.”

 

Her body trembles and she tries to reach for Juggie. _Please. I need you. Please._ He’s sleeping, but she senses him stir, trying to reach back to her. Just... _feelings_. That’s all she can send, and not even very well. _I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you_.

 

“Hey. My heart. What’s...what’s going on with it?” Apparently, Cheryl’s patience is worn thin. Betty wipes her face, wrists throbbing at the motion, and tries to speak. There’s coughing, raspiness from misuse. The words aren’t coming out right. _Blood_ , she tries to convey through pointing and her thoughts. _Time and blood._

 

One of her red arches quirks in dubiousness. “From moi?”

 

Sighing, Betty shakes her head. As Cheryl pads quietly to the kitchen to fetch her a drink, Betty buries the golden collar in the dirt, crafting a fake one as best as she can with her magic. Her whole body is in pain. She sobs through it, her throat still swollen and raw.

 

“ _Shh_ , you’ll wake them up,” Cheryl insists, stroking her hair when she comes back. But Betty won’t wake them up with her tears.

 

Taking tiny sips, Betty lets the blood coat her throat, the veins in her forehead throbbing with attempts to reach her boy.

 

“So? What do you see?”

 

Eagerness no longer able to be kept at bay, Betty clears her throat. “You suppress it. Your heart’s desire. You want it, but you also don’t, so by not granting it, I also grant it.”

 

“What?”

 

Betty fixes her with a plain gaze. “Attention. Respect. Power.” Her chin dips, exhausted. “But you want love and friendship. Like a child.”

 

“Wh-what?”

 

“You have their fear, and you crave that more than their love. You’re scared of what you want. What your mother sent your friends away for.”

 

“You don’t _know_ what I want,” Cheryl hisses, red hair glowing in the night.

 

There’s no point in arguing with her. Cheryl storms back upstairs and sets her own dresses on fire, claiming it was Betty.

 

The punishment burns, and so does Cheryl’s heart.

 

~~~

 

Gradually building her voice back enough to sing to Juggie, Betty spends her nights working the clasps on her wrists with her teeth in the privacy of her little grave. Since she isn’t supposed to speak, and Cheryl insists on her wearing red lipstick, the burns on her tongue and teeth don’t matter on the nights she fails to make progress.

 

_Juggie_ , she keeps thinking, even as she incinerates and whittles away at herself.

 

_Betty._

 

His heart tugs at her soul, jolting her upright.

 

_Betty_ , she feels again, pulse thumping.

 

Sheer adrenaline tears her forward.

 

_Jughead!_ _JUGHEAD!_

 

Bashing through the wall, ignoring the splintering, reverberating pain in her form’s joints. Her numb body stumbles forward. The mahogany doors and iron gate at the front of the property will be too much for her without being able to transform, so she’s reduced to crawling up the stairs. She scans the house desperately, in search of a captor, in search of a candle. The only one who’s awake is Jason, fear keeping him to his room. If he keeps his candles lit, though, maybe she can use the wax…

 

She’s crazed, beyond herself, as she moves towards his room. A thousand scenarios run through her head. He could welcome her. Turn her in. Kill her. Keep the door _shut_.

 

Before she has the chance to knock, she hears the squeak of a mattress, light glowing to life under the door. The click is so soft that even she might not know it was being opened if she wasn’t staring directly at the redhead behind it.

 

His hair falls in a soft swoop off to the side, and he pushes it backwards, eyes on the floor, before receding into his room, leaving the door open for her to come in.

 

He’s still beautiful by lamplight. Softer, less direct and focused, the red of his hair faded to a candle-light orange.

 

“Sit. Please.”

 

She doesn’t have _time_ for a chat, but his heart indicates good intentions. An ally. So she lets him close the door and rigidly draws her body up onto his bed, arms going around her knees as her body trembles with need.

 

_Jughead_.

 

Taking a little breath, Jason looks at her manacles. The raw marks they’ve left on her skin. Burns.

 

“I’m sorry for what my family has done to you.”

 

She doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t look at his bare chest or his drawstring pants. Doesn’t feel regret for what she’s done in her small acts of vengeance.

 

For the time being, she remains silent, boiling under her skin, under metal and need..

 

“I...I know you want to go home. I’ve seen Jughead.”

 

At that, her eyes snap up to meet his face. Jason’s gaze drops apologetically to the bedspread as he moves closer, kneeling on the end of the bed.

 

“He’s not doing too well. I’m guessing it has something to do with being bonded.” He runs his fingers up her anklet, meeting her gaze before flicking open the latch. She gasps, almost jerking back, kicking out of instinct. “I told him about you. Not... _everything_. Just dropped a hint or two about who you seemed to be, which I _think_ got back to him, if his time in the library was any indication.”

 

As he pulls the cuff away, tears loosen and fall down her cheeks, her hands curling into fists with the urge to run her fingers through Jughead’s hair, to watch him learn something. It’s almost _painful_ , being freed. Like being slapped to the floor before being able to run, her skin raw and exposed to the air.

 

“He looked sick. I don’t know if it was with worry, or with something else, but…” Jason looks at her bruised, broken ankle, his hand coming to rest higher on her leg. “I’ve never, in all the years of what I put him through, seen him cry. Not until what we did to you. To both of you.”

 

Betty’s heart squeezes in her chest, a throbbing sorrow she can’t quell.

 

“I hope I never feel like that. Even after…” His hand drops off her skin, caress abandoned. “I can be different,” he swears, blue eyes too clear to remind her of the river.

 

There are a lot of things human _can_ be.

 

With delicate precision, he takes her other foot, arch supported by his thumb, and snaps off the cuff.

 

“I think Cher could be different too, if she had a chance. If we got out from under this Blossom legacy of...” His gaze darts nervously to her crusted ankle. “Blood and syrup.”

 

There are other words she’d like to add. _Suppression. Abuse. Vanity._

 

But those trickle away in a sharp gasp as her foot falls onto the bed, tingles shooting all the way up to her hip.

 

Jason crawls forward, pushing and twisting the clasps on her bracelet cuffs until they, too, fall free. Even though she’s still bubbling with anger, with need, Betty’s eyes water over in relief. She holds her left wrist, amazed at how the flesh itself seems to have shrunk with the bondage, with her love’s absence. They were going to use her until she withered away to nothing.

 

“You might--I’m not sure I can protect him. From my family, I mean. My dad has a gun…” he trails off, looking down.

 

_He isn’t afraid to use it_ , the thought seems to follow.

 

An arsenal, but it’s not the only one. As Jason leans back, she reaches up behind her neck and releases the clasp of her false collar. It falls, grazing her chest before bouncing off her knees and onto the side of the bed.

 

“You…”

 

Exhausted, enraged, Betty looks up. Jason seems frozen in awe, his heart thumping loudly in his chest.

 

_Freedom._

 

She moves forward on her knees, wrapping her arms around his broad swimmer’s shoulders. So grateful that he lives. That he’s changed. That Jughead helped him change.

 

With a tight squeeze, she tries transporting. But she can’t in this state. Jughead’s not still calling her name. She’s weak. Stumbling, only managing a few feet at a time.

 

_Mobility_ , she remembers, sliding towards a bedroom full of a black tarred heart. Her form flickers, mostly a shadow. She’s in too much pain from being restrained for so long to hold onto her shape, wary that they’ll see her and try to do something again.

 

Nana Rose’s nose whistles in her sleep. A dream of her as a girl, long curling red hair, with boys following her under the shade of the trees. A shovel, freshly used, juts out of the ground and lays against the trunk, and she looks at it like her own brand of axe. Nana Rose floats, barely able to remember what it’s like to walk and run and move.

 

_I’ll move you_ , Betty urges, slowly creeping in to possess her. Fitting into Nana Rose’s body is like submerging herself in brittle slime and mold, suffocating her without a full-body tingle. Nana’s still too dazed from her dream to question reality as her numb foot hits the ground with renewed energy, her whole body swinging forward.

 

Even though the muscles in this body are practically nonexistent, Betty’s been dealing with pain for so long that every jolting step feels more like a slap, an encouragement to a horse. They wobble down the stairs in their nightgown, hurrying out the door, when the fresh air hits and Nana awakens a little more than normal.

 

There’s a stirring in her webbed little heart. Excitement. _Moving_. Even Nana Rose starts to break into a trot, laughing gleefully as Betty lets up on the reins. _Freedom_. She cackles and stumbles, eager to _swim_ as Betty puts the thought into her head. They run to Sweetwater, upriver from where Jason made his sacrifice. The cold night air prickles their skin, the fresh smell of the water filling their lungs. It’s beautiful, this mist of Riverdale.

 

Nana Rose wants to shed her nightgown, to see a virile body underneath. In her eagerness, her misty eye sees something like Betty’s human form under her own, and she coos to herself in appreciation before slipping into the cold river.

 

They swim, down towards the Twilight, floating, even as hunger gnaws under their veins, as black spots prickle both of their visions.

 

Somehow, Nana Rose doesn’t question the urge for flesh, for blood. Maybe she expects to be changed in other ways for her new mobility, for beauty, bathe in the fluid of life like a countess in a gothic novel. Wash it away in the river. But sins aren’t scrubbed away so easily, and Betty takes a deep breath before tugging Nana Rose’s body under the current. She thinks she can fight the current, that she’s so _strong_ and _impenetrable_. No regret. She’s already got more wishes, infinite scenarios, and with those disgusting thoughts in her head, Betty leaves her, the shock of it sending Rose back in a tangle of gray hair and withered limbs.

 

Without looking back, Betty moves through the currents. She’s close. _Closer_.

 

_Jughead_ , she pleads, heart thumping quietly, but strong.

 

It doesn’t come back to her right away.

 

_Jughead…_

 

_Betty?!_

 

No longer floating, she clings to the rocks, drags herself up, slow whether a mist or a person.

 

_I’m coming_ , she tries. _I’m coming back_. But the hunger from adrenaline, from magic, from imprisonment wears on her, and she can barely open her eyes long enough to move forward.

 

There’s nothing around here to eat. To drink.

 

_Jughead_ …

 

She tries to stay solid, to _feel_ enough to keep her awake. Wet, cold toes. Mud on her chest. Slippery blades of grass under her fingers. She keeps _trying_ , even if she’s only guessing that her compass points to him even in her near-delirium.

 

_Betty! Betty…_

 

His spirit tugs at her amidst the allure of fading away. The pins she’s bound to prickle at her skin.

 

_Please…_

 

A rustling, wet sound, footfall, someone sprinting through the forest.

 

_It has to be him. Let it be him_ , she thinks, fisting the earth.

 

_Betty!_

 

The desperation in him breaks her, and without even opening her eyes, she sobs, her whole body wracked with relief and exhaustion.

 

“Juggie…” she croaks, splintering her eyes open to make out her boy, her prince. He’s thinner than she last saw him. Gaunt. The bruises under his eyes are more pronounced and his lips are broken, either from his teeth or from lack of water. Oh, but his hands are so warm. They cradle her neck and hip, and already she feels some of her aches drain out of her body.

 

_Home, she’s home_.

 

“Juggie,” she tries to say, but her voice is pretty much gone, happy tears leaking down her face. He’s so beautiful. Even when he’s scared, relieved, he’s beautiful, as is his heart. Needing it pressed up against her, she rolls towards him, her nose warming on his neck, her cheek on his shoulder. “I love you.”

 

“I love _you_ ,” he weeps, chest trembling as he desperately caresses her arms, no doubt trying to warm her. Twitching, she nuzzles up closer, ready to fall asleep. She has him now…

 

“No! _No!_ Betty, stay with me. Stay awake,” he pleads, gently tapping her jaw, kissing all over her face. It’s the first time he’s said her name aloud, and she shivers full-body at the excitement of it. Her name and his lips. Perfect. “What do you need? What can I do?” His concern is palpable through his trembling fingers, his quivering lip. Even the dark hyper-glossiness of his eyes. But she doesn’t _need_ anything. Not now that she’s free, not now that she’s back in his arms.

 

“Rest. Hungry,” she sighs, caressing his cheek.

 

Mouth rolling against his teeth, Jughead nods, turning his head to kiss her tortured wrists, his eyelids shutting so tight that tears squeeze down his cheeks. But he’s not resting. His heart is still pulsing, pushing, and she wants him happy. She wants him safe, like he desires them to be. Something she can grant, if only she could _rest_ …

 

Jostling around, she wonders what he’s doing until the sharp flick of metal catches in the air.

 

She bolts up in his arms, her palms on his thighs, ready to escape.

 

“It’s me. It’s okay, I’m not going to touch you with it,” he promises, a switchblade extended in his hand. She’s not ready for this. To see him like this. Heart pounding, she shakes her head, barely able to process his gentle shushing, the way he’s stroking her hair, taking out the gold bindings and brushing it out with his fingers.

 

“This is for me. I’m going to let you drink.”

 

Alarmed, she stares at him. He’s not...he’s not a sacrifice.

 

“I love you,” he pleads, fingers shoved into the knot in her hair. “I know it’s what you need, and I’m willing give it to you. I’ll give you anything. Everything.”

 

She opens her mouth to protest, to push his blade away.

 

“Betty,” he whispers, the word hot and wet against her neck. “ _Please_. Let me give myself to you.”

 

It shouldn’t have to be him to nourish her. To sustain her in such a basic way. But it’s not. This is something deeper, an offer from his heart. An offer to bind himself to her.

 

“Juggie…” her tongue feels thick with saliva, with hunger.

 

He kisses her, plush lips harsh with broken skin. It suits her, calms her, makes her sleepy and kind. They keep kissing, her shoulders crushed lovingly in his embrace. But the hunger works its way through her gut, parts of her fizzling, exhausted.

 

The switchblade circles around to make a move for his wrist. “No!” She insists, covering his vein. At his questioning gaze, she realizes that he wonders if she doesn’t accept his sacrifice. His eternal pledge. He _knows_...he’s been studying, somehow. So she picks a point on his collar, just below his neck. Taps it once, and looks deep into his sea-blue eyes.

 

_Are you sure?_

 

_Yes._

 

They kiss so tenderly that his spirit feels like a gravitational pull in her soul. When they part, he picks up the switchblade and pricks the tiniest imprint where she’d marked with her finger.

 

After sheathing it, he brings his hand up to her cheek, stroking her, guiding her to the sparkle of his life brimming against his skin. Her tongue darts out as her eyes close, a quick taste. It’s _good_. He’s so _good_. So _right_ for her. Savoring him, she lets herself suckle, pushing his thin tank top aside, thumbs resting on the band and the collar of his jacket so she can keep him against her. It’s like he’s painting his whole life for her. Every secret. Every sin. Right on the tip of her lips.

 

Slowly, intimately, she feeds.

 

At some point, he moans, shifting his legs under her, kissing her brow, stretching his neck back to the sky to pull her in closer to him. Her nails dip past his clothes, drawing small patterns, runes on his skin.

 

_I love you_ , she reminds him.

 

_Yes. Yes._

 

And then, it’s enough. She pulls back, her lips feeling swollen and red, licking them for a last little sweep to return to herself, and she sighs happily against his chest. The wound wasn’t a deep one, won’t keep bleeding unless she pulls from it.

 

_I love you_.

 

_You’re so beautiful. I want to spend forever with you._

 

Their bond is stronger. Her prince.

 

Knowing they shouldn’t make love right here on the riverbed, they take each other’s hands and go off into the woods. There are still hours left to mask them in the darkness. Jughead sniffles in the cold despite the heat she can feel radiating off of him. She finds a cave, one she used before her nights at the drive-in, and closes her body around his until she can feel his heartbeat in her own.

 

There’s so much to talk about, but they’re both weak, and soon, wrapped in each other, they burrow into sleep.

 

~~~

 

She wakes up a few times with a raging, pressing headache. She turns away from the sun, rolling her face into Jughead’s neck and nuzzling until she finds just the right shade of darkness to draw her in again.

 

Time. It’s theirs again.

 

Next time she opens her eyes, it’s because his stomach is growling. His lips chafe against her forehead with the quiet urge for her to take what she needs.

 

_Food_ , she remembers, and kisses him, maybe a little _too_ deeply for how weak they both are, before swallowing them in her ink to take them to Pop’s. She’s so relieved that it works that she bursts into tears, Jughead shushing her into his shoulder, kissing her hair, which is still tangled from the grease of being held together for so long.

 

Everyone stares when they enter the diner, and she’s not sure why. They’re scared to see her. _Scared_. Jughead avoids their gazes and leads her to a booth, kissing their joined hands and mumbling something about a tab.

 

Curious, she reads the room. They’re not scared _of_ her, they’re scared of what _happened_ to her. What happened to _him_.

 

“Jug?”

 

He looks up from the menu, pretending he was reading.

 

“Do they know what happened to me?”

 

The waitress comes over, and even she can’t seem to stop staring, slightly open-mouthed and distracted. Worried. Amazed.

 

“Jug?”

 

He orders hurriedly, the Meat Special for her and a burger and coffee for him before sending the woman away. She keeps glancing over her shoulder at them, leaning over to talk to the proprietor.

 

“Jughead?”

 

Betty’s voice still feels broken, raw, but better than yesterday. The spot where he’d opened his skin for her is faded yellow around the edges, already bruised and healing. He’s nervous.

 

_Jughead._

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

_Why?_

 

His gaze drags across their audience, never quite meeting their eyes. “I may have exposed us a little bit.”

 

Her eyebrows raise up in surprise.

 

“Not...what you are, per se. But when I couldn’t find you…” His heart aches, the fissure of their separation cracking a burn inside his chest. “I tried to find answers.”

 

She squeezes his thigh, leaning in as if she can bandage the time apart with her body.

 

_How?_

 

Eyes flashing towards the table, he squirms. “I may have started looking around. And when I couldn’t feel you...I may have gotten...”

 

_Angry._

 

She feels the smash of glass on his fists. The give of metal on his knuckles. A rawness in his throat, a perpetual churning of acid in his gut. And _Jason_. _Watching_ him practically foam and fade in his grief. Nervous. And he should’ve been.

 

The moment anyone made a comment about his girlfriend not being around, Jughead would snap. First with his words, then with his whole body. He was almost feral. Expelled.

 

_Destroyed_.

 

“Juggie,” she whispers, barely aware of the wetness on her cheeks.

 

And then a flare of hope. An overheard conversation. A half-joke outside the drive-in booth. “Maybe she was a genie, and she got rubbed the wrong way,” his tormentor’s voice had teased to his callous, ignorant friend. “A jinn. You ever read about those?”

 

“You mean like the chick in the pink mesh bikini?”

 

“They’re powerful, but easy to trap. Makes sense why she’d stick to Jones for so long, doesn’t it? Also explains why their relationship seems to have gone up in smoke.”

 

Rage hadn’t consumed him. But something had.

 

Books. Glowing screens. Incantation attempts. Finally, _finally_ he had an idea. Could stop with the pounding in his head, feeling like she was close but unattainable, and _listen_ for her, _feel_ glimmers of her pain and longing. Even though it tore him up, it granted him the sweet relief of knowing that she still _wanted_ him. That she hadn’t abandoned their love, but had been ripped from it.

 

Metal.

 

She’d have to be bound to metal something, and he’d been on a mission to find it. He knew nothing would be at school or she’d find a way to appear to him. 

 

“When I was caught trespassing on the estate,” he starts, his own voice worn thin, “I tried to tell the cops that I was looking for you. That you’d been taken. They said I had to file a report, but I couldn’t...I didn’t want to give them your name. I knew what that might do to you, especially if a cop told the Blossoms or if they tried to take you for themselves, and I couldn’t risk it. They thought I was crazy. They even thought of sending me away. But I knew,” he insists, tapping the table with a sudden ferocity, muscles clenching. “I _knew_ I would find you. That we’d find each other. Because you were always there when I needed you, and I will _always_ come when you need me...” Tears spill over his eyelids, down his cheeks and throat. His hand snakes up into his hat, stroking the pins in a way that makes her bones thrum. “I just didn’t know how to get to you. I’m so sorry. I’m so _sorry_ I wasn’t there for you.”

 

“Juggie. You are there for me. Always. The same way I’m always with you.” Her fingers creep up into his over the hat, stroking the pins along with him. The warmth pulses through their spirits, tightening them like an impenetrable weave as her fingers run over the metal, threaded through his. His whole face slackens in shock when he realizes what she’d done.

 

“You...you bound yourself to me?”

 

She nods.

 

“But why…when?” Emotion swirling in his gaze, overcome, he starts trembling. “I’m human--I’m nothing. Jinn don’t bind themselves to someone like me, not of their own free will. Not forever.”

 

Her fingers pull on the scoop of his shirt, nails lightly grazing over his heart. It pounds, straining and swelling to contain his emotions, his hope, swiftly turning into elation as her eyes meet his. The burns and bruises on her body fade to his caresses, words warm as they climb out of her throat. “You’re my prince, Juggie. My soul speaks to you and yours to mine. No Jinn or object could hold me as well as your heart. I want to be with you forever, however long that will be.”

 

Jughead takes her hand, her face, and kisses her so passionately that they both thud against the window behind them.

 

“Oh my god,” he keeps weeping, holding her close until their heartbeats are aligned. Their limbs tangle, faces pressed together, and she doesn’t remember the rest of the room until uncertainty sputters in the hearts around them.

 

Annoyed, she turns to look. Their waitress hovers a few tables down, their food baskets trembling. There’s an aura around them. Not visible, of course. But palpable in some way for even humans to perceive.

 

Betty stares at the waitress until she carefully lunges forward, dropping the baskets and whispering, “Just let us know if you need anything else.”

 

Practically in Jughead’s lap, Betty pulls at her meat. Jughead kisses her jaw, still moved, still amazed how closely they’re threaded together. He only eats when she starts to feed him. Strength. They’ll need it for what’s to come. For whatever life he wants to live. It’s hard for her to read him right now when his whole heart is still so utterly relieved to be with her.

 

The bell at the door rings with the arrival of a square, solid man in a beige suit.

 

He’s alarmed, staring at them. At her burns and bruises. At Jughead’s softness with her.

 

_Unusual_ , the man thinks. _Impossible_ , maybe. She doesn’t like being catalogued, doesn’t like the way he accepts how hungry her prince had been, how upset, how he’d put him in a box and considered putting him in a barred or padded one, sealed away from ever enjoying his love and life again.

 

Protective instincts flare up in her, and she shifts her shoulders in front of Jughead’s chest. His heart. It’s hers, now.

 

“Mind if I join you?”

 

Jughead barely even glares at the man, his gaze firmly on Betty’s hands, her neck. “If you want.”

 

The man stiffens when he gets close enough, as if their bond makes the atmosphere physically uncomfortable. Or maybe it’s just the urge to shove him back that she’s suppressing.

 

“This your girl?”

 

His fingers graze under the hem of her clothes. “Yeah.”

 

“May I ask your name, miss?”

 

_None of your business_ , she wants to hiss, especially for denouncing it impossible for Jughead Jones, her _prince_ , to have found and lost a love.

 

“She doesn’t like to give it,” Jughead offers, bristling in her defense, his voice oddly neutral. A mask. He’s never needed to use one with her.

 

“I’m...afraid if you want to file a report--”

 

“You mean for kidnapping and assault?”

 

The man clears his throat. “Yeah. So. A name?”

 

“I don’t know you,” she says flatly, staring at him in a way that makes him squirm, and not because he’s noticed the flecks of color in her eyes. Jughead’s hand curls around her own, protecting her in his own way. Police are no more or less trustworthy to her than any other human, and clearly this one didn’t do his job. Didn’t even investigate the Blossoms, nor the estate.

 

“My name is Sheriff Keller. I’m the law in this town.” She feels Jughead’s dubious exhale on her shoulder. “If you want to press charges on whomever did that to you, I’m going to need a name.”

 

It flings easily off her tongue. “Clifford Blossom.” When Sheriff Keller stares, stunned, she says, “You only asked for one.”

 

Questions rise up in a strange order, and she notices Jughead press something on his phone when she starts talking. He doesn’t trust the man across from them not to twist their story, to use it. So she answers honestly, distinctly, leaving little to no room for embellishment. If he wants proof, her gold collar is still buried in their garden, their walls no doubt still broken. And copious amounts of blood should still be in the fridge or a freezer nearby with interesting means of acquisition.

 

“But what’s the _motive_?” Keller asks, squinting as though two youths he never believed in will somehow provide him the answers.

 

Anger laps at Jughead’s soul. “Do you need a motive, Sheriff, or do you need a crime? The evidence is at Blossom manor. I suggest you go find it.”

 

Sheriff Keller gives them a hard glance, trying to read them in his own way. To fit them into the narrow spaces things make sense in his brain. All he sees are two battered teens taking shelter in each other against the harsher aspects of the world. Frowning, he turns away, remembering the embrace of someone who waited with him for the world to be a better place.

 

_Foolish_ , she thinks. They should’ve fought for it. Despite her resilient anger on behalf of her boy, she gives his heart a nudge in that direction.

 

Jughead squeezes her arm as if he knows, and maybe with their bond he does. As she turns back to face him, nose nudging his, he asks, “What do you want?”

 

Her heart’s desire sits next to her in the booth. Hers. But maybe she wants a moment of peace, and finds it with her lips pressed against his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How 'bout them Blossoms, eh? You'll find out what happens to them next time, which I think I'll update on Sunday just because I have been LOVING the comments and thoughts you all have shared and making you wait for the next chapter seems silly. Aren't we glad these two are back together? How are we feeling? If you have a head canon for Jug during his absence of Betty phase, we can wallow in it together. Thankfully Betty's in a position she can regain some of her strength and take care of him again, even as he takes care of her. Love these two *sigh* Tell me things, please


	4. Forever

The Blossoms are thinking of her all day, so it makes it easy for her to sit by the river, her eyes full of mist, Jughead’s body a steady furnace behind her, to watch and read what happens. To make sure that they will be safe.

 

Teeth grinding, Clifford keeps a steady stream of panic and assurances in his brain as he searches for her, for his mother, driving around, looking in fields. That’s where Keller finds him.

 

A sharp streak of despair shoots through him when Keller offers to help look for Rose, see if she’s come back to the house. But his reassurances that he can handle it are met on deaf ears, and Clifford considers driving his car into the river instead of facing the law. But there’s still hope. That his mother is the one who came out on top. That she’s enjoying some kind of selfish bestial freedom instead of floating down the river.

 

Jason’s anxiety is much more poignant, a cautious turning of the door knob, guiding Keller’s questions in a way that twists his father’s story closer to the truth. Broken glass, broken wood. All of it points to a breakout. Blood still stains the wood, and Cheryl comes down in her silk robe, her heart clenched tight in fear, but more than anything, shock. That something could break free so brutally without the chaos of an outside agent.

 

Her cage is empty, but it’s clear something had been _kept_ there. Escaped. Dug itself a bed in the dirt, where a broken golden collar is buried without its owner’s knowledge. Stains caked on a tea cup indicate sedatives, blood. Nothing _good_.

 

As Keller gets a call about Rose’s body washing up on the riverbank, Clifford edges towards a gun, fear spreading its chilly fingers on his chest and squeezing his heart.

 

“Dad, no,” Jason breathes, running forward. Cheryl screams, ready to destroy everything in a shrill, horrible moment, until Penelope grabs her from behind to repress the thrashing red waves of red.

 

Caution and disgust recede to nothing, a pinpoint, as Keller follows instincts. Protocol. That pinpoint focuses in a laser-whip of instincts. Of predators. Of soldiers. And Clifford Blossom falls.

 

With some element of relief, Betty leans back into her prince.

 

“What do you see?”

 

“Release.” Reaching behind, she slots their faces so she can kiss his cheek.

 

~~~

 

Everyone knows Jughead’s too poor to afford gold. Too rabid to have purposely let his love do something to herself to frame the Blossoms at all. 

 

That family is known for exuding and exerting power. For cheating in business. For engraving expensive brooches with their names, their colors. And they confess. A devastated Penelope doesn’t know what to do at first, her heart so intent on _punishing_ and _asserting,_ protecting herself from the outside world, of keeping up that Blossom _shell_ , the thin veneer of safety, that it takes her a day or two of screaming and denials before she realizes that Betty gave her the ultimate gift: freedom.

 

That’s when they tearfully confess. A family posing for the papers, distraught over the hand forced by its matriarchs decisions. They make up a story, knowing the truth won’t be digestible, even for as strange a place as Riverdale. Exposing any of Betty’s secrets might as well be inviting her back in to finish off the family line. Jason speaks on behalf of the family about regret, about inheriting mistakes, but not being chained by them. How hate is its own prison, and love and compassion might be the key. Also that he, his mother, and his sister, all had their part in either freeing Betty or easing her entrapment.

 

Jughead snorts at that, pulling Betty closer in a strange display of jealousy mixed with something else. The photo op is complicated. They can’t get her face, of course, but the papers do get a flash of a moment where Jason embraces her in a hug, her wrist bruised and burned while her hand stays tightly in Jughead’s.

 

All the gold bindings are melted down, even the ones that were in her hair. Sold. For Jughead. Not that he’ll want for anything, but still. It’s something. An investment. People approach Jughead and ask him if he’ll write a book about the experience, with Betty’s permission of course. Because they’re a unit in everyone’s eyes now. A team. Invincible. His heart soars, but something still niggles at his happiness, and she’s not sure what it is.

 

They camp, or even explore the buildings Archie’s good-hearted father builds. _Homes_. If she was human, she’d ask him to build her one. Instead, she snuggles up next to Jughead in any form she needs to at night. Now that the sanctity of the projection booth is broken, they find other places to _stay_. The treehouse. Archie’s room, where Betty roosts in the window or slinks up under Jughead’s shirt once Archie goes to sleep. They rarely enter the trailer, even though FP is sober. There are still too many bad memories.

 

More people think of Betty without knowing who she is, so she’s mostly able to ignore it. As her wounds heal, she catches thoughts as vacant and wide as the stretch of new sheets settling on a bed. Cheryl loves and loathes her family. Herself. But Jason somehow helps it get better. There’s no underlying vengeance. Just...exhaustion. Frustration. But a certain amount of relief, too. Because now they have their own inheritances to enjoy, and a stake they can either sell or invest in the company, along with their mother.

 

At school, Betty pretends to transfer in for only a few credits. It’s mostly so she can pair with Jughead for science class, amuse herself with chats on life and molecules when she shifts them on a daily basis. Too much time with students and they might actually start looking at her. Noticing things. But they seem to respect their space, their need to smile and touch each other after nearly losing each other forever.

 

_Romantic_ , to some. _Nauseatingly weird,_ to others.

 

For Jughead, it’s reassuring, and that’s all she needs to keep living this way. The conversation at lunch drifts around her, secondary to the readings on people she’s getting. Archie’s so _excited_ and it’s _sweet_. Love inspires him. She and Jughead help him dream of songs, of devotion, but there’s a girl a year older than them that’s been helping him find his voice in the love languages too. When Betty searches her heart, there’s nothing to cause alarm. Affection. Not love, but nothing selfish, either.

 

“It’s just...it’s good to have you back, man.”

 

With a little smirk, Jughead nudges Archie’s foot under the table. “Yeah, well, I guess it’s okay being back here with you, too.”

 

_But for how long_? She hears and shoots him a confused look. For one of the first times since she’s known him, he guards his heart a little, avoiding her eyes, even as his fingertips skid down her back.

 

“What were you thinking about?” she asks later, walking by the river while they hold hands. “Do you not want to be in school? We don’t have to go, not unless you want to.”

 

“No, it’s not that.”

 

“Then what?”

 

His eyes glassy, he bites his lip. “I...I’m not sure this is enough for you.”

 

The answer hits her harder than she was expecting. “What do you mean? Most days you’re what I’m _awake_ for.”

 

“I mean, what is my human life in the grand scheme of things? Nothing. I’m noth--”

 

She cuts him off with her hands on either side of his face, staring deep into his eyes until the words lodge in his throat, as does his uncertainty. She’ll reach in and pluck it out with her fingers if she has to.

 

“Maybe what I mean is that it’s not enough for me.”

 

Shocked, she lets her fingers fall from his face. She’s done _everything_ for him. How can he not...love her? Love this life they’re building?

 

He encases her hands before they leave his skin entirely, pulling her back to him.

 

“I want... _longer_ than what’ll probably be _my_ life with you,” he whispers, eyes glassy. “A human forever. You gave up so much...for me. And what can I offer you? Lab partners? Prom?” Even as he scoffs, she can see how he treasures those ideas, those moments he’ll have with her. “What happens when I get old and can’t--when I can’t be there for you anymore?”

 

“I’ve never _needed_ anything, Juggie. I just want you to be yourself. To be with you for however long we have.”

 

“But what about you?” he pleads, gently rubbing his thumbs over her knuckles. “Who will protect you when I’m gone? I almost lost you. I can’t do that again. What happens when I die and you’re still bound to me or the pins? I can’t do that to you. I won’t. I want to be with you for _your_ forever.”

 

She pulls back, incredulous at the sincerity of his declaration. “You can’t give up your whole _life_ for me.”

 

“Why not? It’s what you did for me.”

 

“Jughead, I…” At a loss, she feels her knees sag out from under her, but then his arm is around her waist and he holds her as her heart scratches in her chest to get close to his. Sink in and hold him like claws.

 

The softness of his lips at her ear makes her shiver against him. “Betty, I want to be your forever, too.”

 

Her whole spirit stretches and groans with the sick desire to grant his wish. To make him like her. But she loves him as he is, the journey he could have as a human.

 

No human ever lived through the transition to a jinn. It was more often a punishment, never a real gift. The granting of that desire usually rooted to seeking power without understanding how to wield it, how to ground oneself. They evaporate, drown into nothingness or burn out in a violent fit before ever even fully taking on their new essence. She can’t do that to him. Not when he’s still so young, when they still have so much to live for.

 

“Juggie...I...I think we should live _this_ life first. Your human one. Get stronger, wiser, love even harder,” she insists, nose nudging up against his, making sure she catches his eye before his gaze falls in disappointment, “and maybe...maybe if I can find a way to do it on my own...and if you still want it, I can make it safe for you. Your heart is so strong, and I love you so much. I never want to hurt you by making you into something you’re not--something you’re not ready for.” Disappointment churns in his gut, but she thinks he understands. “I love you,” she reiterates, pressing her forehead against his. “And we have so much left to live. So much left to explore. Don’t we?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Stay with me. Like this. Kiss me.”

 

The force of his devotion slams into her, arms wrapping her into his embrace.

 

_Forever, forever._

 

A teenage boy shouldn’t have to think of these things. But he’s her prince. Such a big heart. Such a great mind. She’ll keep him for her forever, too, if she can. But she wants him to live _his_ without worrying about what’s next. Or at least not worrying about eternity.

 

They talk about the transition, about the future. What would change. How things would happen. He agrees, at least, that they should look into it more, even though he anxiously yearns to commit himself in the fullest way he can. They even talk about children: if and when they want any, what they’d be like in his current state (probably human, but possibly jinn, all-or nothing when it comes to cosmic power, she supposes), how they might be a family or feed if they were jinn. How making a family or sex might change when his body does. He wants to know everything, to share everything with her.

 

Visiting colleges gets dicey. Archie insists she comes with, but being in a car makes her sick.

 

“She okay?”

 

“She will be,” Jughead says quietly, stroking her hair and urging her to sleep. Nausea continues to boil over in her throat, and by the time they make it to New York she can hardly stand to be physical at all. Holding her hair back while she pukes over a metal trash can, she can _feel_ how helpless Jughead is. How he’s already wishing to have her be safe, be home. That this whole thing is a mistake and they should live in the woods, alone, forever.

 

“If this is what you want, I’ll find a way.” She wipes the acid on her lips away with the back of her hand. “ _We’ll_ find a way.”

 

The buildings on every side make her nervous, so she holds Jughead’s hand the whole time, trembling. Archie just thinks she’s sick, or maybe nervous, and offers her saltines or sports drinks to settle her stomach. Eventually, as they’re making their away through yet another metal building, she feels her vision getting spotty. Without a word, Jughead gently tugs her into his arms for a kiss and hoists her up to carry her. She can be light. Sleep on him. As much as she tries to fight it, the swarming desires and excessive metal of the city bear down on her, and she passes out on his shoulder.

 

When she wakes up, they’re in Central Park. Archie’s still getting some food so they have a moment to themselves.

 

“Did you like it?” she asks, rubbing her eyes from sleep.

 

“It was fine. But I can’t.”

 

“Why not?”

 

He shoots her a sideways smile, eyebrows raised. “Asks my sleeping beauty?”

 

Bristling, she draws her knees up to her chest. “It’s not like you need to babysit me. I can...I can live here or something. Or sleep.”

 

“For all four years of college?”

 

“I don’t know. If this is what you want, we’ll figure it out.”

 

“Read me. What do I want?” he challenges, pressing her palm to his chest. Her ears are still ringing with metal and the overwhelming dreams and urges of the city around her, but his heart grounds her.

 

“You want us to be happy. Safety. Growth. And fun. Learning. For both of us.”

 

“Both of us. And Archie,” he amends, gesturing over to his friend, who’s busy trying not to spill mustard on his sleeve as he walks back toward them. “How are we both going to get stronger if this place makes you weak?”

 

Before she can protest, he squeezes her knee reassuringly. “There are other schools, ones that are a little more remote than NYC. We’ll do this, Betty. We can make it work. For both of us.”

 

Jughead refuses to leave her in the car and is fine either carrying her or letting her rest on campus courtyards as he finishes the tours with Archie and Fred. His heart and mind drift back to Betty almost the entire time. The trip isn’t a total waste, however. They find a street performance. Eat some delicious meat. Jughead finds a piece of pizza bigger than his face and folds it carefully so its grease is funneled directly into his waiting mouth. Even though she’s exhausted, it makes her laugh, and before they leave, she finds a way to sneak into a venue and get them tickets for a band and a Broadway show.

 

“Student discount. I knew somebody,” she shrugs, when they ask. During the concert, Jughead squeezes her back against his chest and rocks their bodies together. Dancing makes her heart lighter, which makes his lighter too. As the heat builds between them, they offer to go get water. Once they’re away from prying eyes, she teleports them to a lush empty hotel room nearby and falls into his arms, kissing him and pushing at his clothes.

 

Pupils dilated, he readjusts her hips until she’s settled above him. His heart doesn’t want for _anything_.

 

“Are you sure you don’t want to live like this?” she pants, kissing him again.

 

“What? You being awake four hours a day and nauseous the rest? No. Betty, _this_ is amazing, but it’s--it’s not our life. I want _you_. All of you.”

 

She tugs on his hair, her fingers accidentally scraping under his hat, the pin. Mouth dropping open in rapture, she shudders around him. _All of me._

 

“Yes. Just like that. Stay with me,” he murmurs, kissing her collar, thrusting up into her. The pressure of his heat into the fleshy sponge of her body makes her tremble and _need_. He loves it when she craves him like this. When her pulse and desire practically bursts into his. After, when they’re spent, he sucks at her collar, almost mirrored to where he’d shared his own blood with her, pulling a red mark into her skin.

 

_You want a mark?_

 

Lazy and sated, he nuzzles further into her, kissing her skin and leaving his saliva in a light trail. She can feel his yearning. To be close. To be _hers_ and _his_.

 

_Come on, my prince. I’ll remind you that your blood belongs to me_.

 

The nibbling of teeth and sucking of skin makes him hard again, and they end up fucking messily on the bedspread until she actually _does_ want to feast on him. Or _something_ , at least.

 

When they return all bow-legged and smug smiles, the Andrews’ men blush and shake their heads, turning back to the music.

 

It would be easy, she thinks, to tell them the truth. They accept Jughead, and by extension appreciate that she’s part of the “package deal” in their minds. Someone he’d fight for. Maybe, if they knew, she could transport them all to the next stop so she wouldn’t have to shudder in a small car. Then they could probably all focus on having a good time. The Andrews are sweet humans, but she’s still not sure they wouldn’t want for things, even by accident. Perhaps they’d fear her. Try to convince Jughead to stay away. Not that he would, but still. She wants to be able to be herself.

 

“One day,” Jughead promises, kissing her forehead as the city passes by in a blur of metal and lights.

 

Rhode Island is better. Smaller. More manageable. Providence doesn’t have the same mist as Riverdale, but the buildings are made of mostly brick, and the trees seem to be held with the same importance as pavement. She can stay awake here. Listen to inane ramblings about campus life and majors, perch in the library, somewhere that makes Jughead’s palms sweaty. It’s nice.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Yeah,” she nods, enjoying the smell of grass.

 

Songbird gets into a school nearby, one named for the place. For music. And Jughead, _beautiful_ Jughead, gets into Brown. It’s a big deal for a human. A place for growing, for making his own path. He squeezes Betty tight and spins her around in his arms, Archie nearly doing the same to _him_ for the accomplishment. They’ll get an apartment off-campus. A two-bedroom.

 

“Betty, where are you gonna go?”

 

“I may take some classes here and there,” she shrugs, which is true. Either as a shadow, or as a human girl. Following Jughead to all of his classes may prove to be a distraction, so they tell Archie that she’s focused on an independent study.

 

Senior year of high school flies by for all of them. Jughead’s _excited_. Jubilant. He even takes Betty to some of Archie’s football games and they sit on the grass instead of the bleachers, clapping and hollering for his success. He writes, impassioned stories about destiny, about love. Joins fantasy games. Becomes a leader. A warrior.

 

Her beautiful boy gets stronger every day, more confident in his human life. His ability to protect and honor her. To live for himself without taking from her. Giving. Loving. Growing growing _growing_ …

 

The idea of leaving the river and mist makes Betty melancholy. She _loves_ Riverdale. She loves Jughead. A lot of time spent away from her _love_ is spent embracing the town, soaking up what she can, even playing with the Ghoulies as a spirit and a hunter. Maybe one day she and Jughead will come back. FP doesn’t want to leave, so perhaps they’ll visit him for Jughead’s sentimentality and her own. Researching how to move on to the next stages of their lives is hard for her, because there’s no real guide post. Just intuition. Speculation.

 

The summer before they leave, Jughead’s eyes are like a cloud sunlit from within. So _happy_.

 

Her beautiful, precious prince. And all he wants is _more_.

 

More spinning together in the water. Heated kisses late at night. Long talks to drown out the world’s choir.

 

Words.

 

Family.

 

Love.

 

_More_.

 

~~

 

It’s almost a game, seeing if Archie will _notice_ her different eye colors. That her body barely changes. The lack of her clothes in the apartment or feminine beauty products. Even the way she travels sometimes indicates she’s not really _walking_ , but Archie barely registers any of it. He’s just so excited and passionate. Talks to his dad every other day, playing him songs on speaker phone to ask what he thinks. It’s sweet.

 

Jughead seems taken aback to meet so many people _like_ him. People who read and write and want to better themselves. It makes him feel small, at first. Ordinary.

 

_You’re my prince_ , she reminds him, hand at his heart. But that doesn’t stop him from clenching his jaw and curling into himself at a party where a few human boys look at her in the outfit conjured for _him_. He’s sullen. Embarrassed for even bringing her somewhere the hearts all clamor for validation, even his own.

 

“Jughead,” she protests, pulling at his crossed arms.

 

There are so many of them, human boys. Virile ones, she knows. But none of them have his passion. None of them have _her_ , will _ever_ have anything close to what she and Jughead have. They couldn’t dream it up if they tried.

 

Yet somehow Jughead still feels like this is an inadequate date.

 

In an annoyed effort to break into his cagey heart, she dances, enjoying the way temptation sneaks onto his face. Talking to other people is fine. Reading them is sometimes fun. Even feeding on their desires can be good, on occasion. But Jughead. _Jughead_. When she kisses him, it’s like infinity gets shortened down to the sweet sensation of bliss.

 

Finally, he stops worrying if she’s having a good time. They curl into each other in some dark corner just like a human couple might and she has to resist the urge to drag them into the shadows enough to teleport into _their_ bedroom.

 

Here they’re not some power couple or curiosity. They blend in. Lovers, albeit far more entranced with each other than is probably usual for humans. Betty’s never seen a love like theirs before. She’s seen _love_ and _loyalty,_ yes. Even enjoyed the elopement of Sheriff Keller as a breeze in Town Hall where two full hearts finally joined together. But _this_... _them…_

 

It’s not human. It’s not jinn, either. It's more. 

 

Archie falls in love a few times, but only _stricken_ once. A girl with glossy black hair and a tightly-bound heart who adds endearments to his name instead of saying _I love you_. The first time they all meet, Jughead squeezes Betty’s shoulder and looks to her for an answer.

 

_Is she okay?_

 

Although the girl is smiling with confidence, it’s clear that she’s lived most of her life on the edge of a trial. The heart is...ambitious. Borderline callous. But hopeful. Strangely hopeful, as it swells open under the attention of a certain songbird.

 

Betty isn’t sure what to tell Jughead, and inhales sharply before shaking the girl’s outstretched hand. Things are _fine_. Jughead’s cautious about trusting someone with his best friend, but by the end of the meeting, Veronica’s so excited by Archie’s attention that she hugs Betty, surprising her.

 

It’s the first person who’s really _hugged_ her other than Jughead. Archie’s hugged her too, but never with a desire to share excitement or love. More as a goodbye or hello, a courtesy to Jughead.

 

She thinks Archie will be okay. So does Jughead, eventually.

 

The more persistent presence of Veronica cues some frank discussions and desires about money. It’s something she knows humans crave. Something that Jughead doesn’t really have, and Veronica has a lot of. Pearl necklaces that Jughead sees in terms of classes, payments. Finally, Betty asks him about it.

 

“Should I...help you?” She’s aware he pays for the space, along with Archie. It’s always struck her as odd, needing to pay to sleep somewhere. Maybe she should pay him in more than company and small wishes. He doesn’t work at a movie theater anymore, too busy with classes, although he does pick up odd jobs that she sometimes helps with. It’s nice to watch him build things with his hands, his muscles straining, smirk widening when he catches her hovering, even as a bit of mist.

 

“The Blossom blood money will only get me so far. It’s fine, Betty. Student loans exist for a reason.”

 

“Loans?” she clarifies, stretching out on their bed. His gaze trickles up her body.

 

“Yeah. The government lends me money, and I pay it back in monthly installments. With interest.” _Interest_ makes her eyes narrow, her body scooting up and out of his eager reach. It sounds like being bound to someone. Someone besides _her_.

 

“Maybe. In some ways,” he chuckles, trying to make light of it. “But I only truly belong to you.”

 

It _bothers_ her. She spends part of her days combing for crystals, growing them, studying them in the hopes they’ll give her answers as to how to unbind him from this life and bring him to another. Maybe there are answers elsewhere, but she has this pull to stay in Jughead’s orbit. Libraries. Parks. Everything works for now. _For now._

 

Placing the stones in his hands gives her a strange satisfaction. She’s never just given him _gifts_ before. Solid things. They’re always gestures instead.

 

He frowns at them, thanking her, but she doesn’t think he understands.

 

“You can sell them.”

 

“Sell...rocks?”

 

“Look at their hearts,” she teases, toes curling into smoke as she lifts up to kiss him. His ridiculous smirk when they crack one open makes her heart surge with glee. “See? Pure. Valuable.”

 

“Amazing,” he sighs into her mouth, pushing the stones away to rub himself along her flesh.

 

When he graduates, he asks her again. “Can I be with you?”

 

“Of course,” she says, kissing him and brushing aside his tassel. _Someday_. But she doesn’t change him. There’s still too much she needs to learn to ensure that it will be safe. Still too much he wants from this life.

 

The excitement of the first job offer. Playing games with his friends, that awesome laugh that seems to break out of his neck itself when he leans back. She treasures these things.

 

But it’s still hard sometimes. That it feels like _waiting_. Or watching. The urge to make him a jinn swells and buries itself in her gut. It’s not like she’s _alone_. Not even _truly_ lonely.

 

Just...tethered, in some ways, in a knot of her own device. Sure, she’d love to see Egypt, but with _him_ , fluttering through libraries and mysteries. Or she’d enjoy hopping along thick boulders and ocean spray, not having to look back and see if the rocks were taking him. Never. She won’t risk it. They’ll have an eternity. Maybe. If he survives. And that’s part of it, she thinks. That he might not survive. Because she doesn’t know how she will if he doesn’t. Will she treasure the moments they confuse dogs in the park (her, with her scent, him with the ball)? Or will the memories of her bliss bury and anchor her into the depths of the ocean? She’s not sure.

 

She _loves_ him.

 

Watches him grow stronger and smarter and _smug,_ always eager to come back home. To fix things. To stroke her hair. He lets her weave around him as steam before sex, insists they cuddle every night. They pop in for visits with Jellybean to help her with homework, never really explaining where they are, _how_ they got there.

 

It’s nice, she thinks. Nicer than drownings and baptisms. On most days, at least.

 

Having him keep working, indentured to the government, to humans, upsets her. It must upset him too, although maybe it’s just carryover of her anxiety into his heart. Archie is fine. FP is sober. Even Jellybean is off to college soon. People are asking when they’re going to get married, as if they aren’t bonded already. So why... _why_ does it still make her sick to even think of trying to change things? What is she so afraid of?

 

When she can't understand her own feelings, the best thing she can do is swim, or since there’s no river nearby, fly. Her thoughts take her higher, soaring, mist at her smokey wings as she lets the currents of the sky push her deeper past the trees. A pop startles her. A _shot_. Aimed at her all-consuming, thoughtful flight.

 

In a spur of smoke, she darts into the trees, leaves shuddering on all sides of her. Pulse thrumming in her ears, all she can think of is Jughead. _Jughead_. Forever. Losing Jughead forever.

 

What reality would forever be without him? What life? What moments? What would her life mean if her heart’s desire didn’t exist? If she existed without him? If he were forced to exist without her?

 

Reality swarms in front of her, bursting the blues and pinks of Riverdale with the greens and reds of Providence until she isn’t sure where she is. Where _he_ is. All she wants…

 

With thunder crackling in her ears, she slithers into and away from the things her heart is so twisted around that she’s not sure whether he desires them or she does.

 

_Providence._

 

_Riverdale._

 

_Human._

 

_Jinn._

 

_Prince._

 

_Freedom._

 

_Forever._

 

**_Forever_ ** _._

 

Jughead gasps when she grabs his lapels, yanking him out of wherever he is and shoving them into the bedspread where they’ve made their home.

 

“Betty, what--?”

 

Springing onto the mattress, Betty sits on his lap, forearms still digging into his collar as he scrambles up on his elbows to meet her.

 

“I’ll set you free. I’ll love you forever. But please don’t leave me. _Please_ don’t leave me,” she sobs. “I can’t have forever without you. I can’t even die without you. I can’t--I can’t…” The words evaporate as mist on her tongue, forehead falling down to his chest as sobs rock her body into his.

 

“Betty, what happened? What are you saying?”

 

“I feel like I’ll be killing you,” she whispers, tears leaving slimy tracks down her skin as she finally voices her fears. “Like I’ll be burning you down and I’ll only be left with smoke and ashes. Your _heart_ , Juggie. I love your _heart_. What if you don’t come back to me? Or what if once you change, so do your feelings about me? About everyone? What if you don’t love me the same way?”

 

His pulse races, but she can’t stop.

 

“Your blood will be different. Your heart will be different. I don’t even know for sure if I can keep it beating.” Her voice is tinged with despair. “I…I would become human for you, if that’s what you wanted.”

 

He stares at her like she’s just ripped open the world. “Why…?”

 

“I would. I--”

 

“Betty, stop.” He concentrates, smoothing her face. “You don’t want a human life. I _know_ you. You’ve basically been living half of one with me for years. I don’t want a human life without you. You know this. What’s happened? Why are you worried about this _now_?”

 

Her eyes line with tears, body curling into hot smog to envelop him. “Because I...I want you. By my side. My pair. Forever. Where I go, I want you to be able to follow. I don’t want to lose you.”

 

“I will. I’ll come back to you. I’ll love you. Always. Our bond won’t break over whatever this transformation is. I’m still yours. I’m still your prince,” he swears, kissing her cheek and holding her close. “Forever, I promise.”

 

He lets her cry into his shoulder until her sobs become hiccups, until she’s nestled and warm.

 

“So are you saying that it’s time? Should I do my ‘Jughead Jones as a Human’ goodbye tour?”

 

“Yes,” she sniffs, kissing the veins in his neck, smoothing his hair. “Yes. We’re ready.”

 

She’s not taking _any_ risks, and refuses to let him have any foods in his stomach that wouldn’t agree with a jinn’s disposition before his transformation. But he should try things. Love them while he can. So she teleports them across Asia and laughs as he slurps ramen and chews on bubble tea. Under sakura blossoms, she swirls a gentle spiral of petals around their swaying bodies, and feels a heady rush when his smoky eyes meet hers. She can imagine it. Floating, swimming together. Tethered and infinite.

 

In the middle east, they run into more of her kind. Not in human form. Not bound. A small pack of them, disguised as birds. Betty prickles and nearly teleports them away instantly, but Jughead grounds her.

 

_It’s okay._

 

The jinn stare at her mostly-human form, at the way she walks so closely with her mate it’s like they’re woven together. Maybe they think she’s crazy. She’s nervous to check, but she’s more anxious on behalf of Jughead, that maybe they’ll do something to him. It’s not like jinn are _inherently_ malevolent, but they can be.

 

It’s been a long time since she’s seen another jinn at all, let alone a pack of them. They chirp at her, trying to get her attention, unable to read her guarded heart.

 

“Go,” Jughead urges, squeezing her hand tightly.

 

With a certain wariness, she lets go and slinks over to the birds.

 

“Are you bound?” they ask with voices united and curious.

 

“Yes.” She looks over her shoulder at him, her slouching prince, with his cloudy eyes and thoughtful face and practically singes herself in her love for him. “We’re going to be paired soon.”

 

They twitter in surprise. “You give yourselves willingly?”

 

“Yes.” She waits for the shame, the judgments, the outrage, but after a few harried seconds where they all sing to each other, they hop forward and bow, humbled and moved.

 

“If that is your heart’s desire, we will help you grant it.”

 

Elated, she grins, turning to Jughead so brightly that he’s almost pushed back by her enthusiasm.

 

They hurry with the rest of their “human” tour. Jughead takes a few days to ride his motorcycle with his father, then gifts it to Fred, who’s become FP’s brother in his sobriety.

 

Archie and Jughead go to a crazy amusement park, riding coasters and screaming, bashing into each other with rubber-rounded cars while Veronica and Betty watch on with a smile.

 

“Is this long trip you two are going on some cover for your honeymoon? Because eloping seems redundant at this point. You two are basically already married,” Veronica muses after Jughead runs over and kisses Betty’s cheek before snagging the pretzel treat she’d gotten for him. Marriage isn’t too far from Veronica’s thoughts lately, which is interesting, because she’s always regarded it with a little disdain in the past. Now, she sees something else. Opportunity. Loyalty. Family. Archie thinks about love a _lot_ , but he hasn’t done much besides daydream about Veronica in a white dress. In anticipation of that growing desire, Jughead and Fred have been helping craft the perfect diamond ring with jewels Betty’s grown herself. Maybe when they get back they’ll get to see it matured into something even more beautiful.

 

“Soon,” Betty replies softly, squeezing her hand instead of answering her question.

 

For all of them.

 

_Soon._

 

When the day finally comes, Betty’s a _wreck_. Jughead’s nervous though, so she tries to keep her emotions in check and limit herself to excited, happy crying. They’d made the gentlest love the night before, his eyes never leaving her face, nor hers his, not until emotion hit them so hard that their entire beings shuddered. They’d stayed up talking about all their memories, about the fantasy of their love story lining shelves and libraries. About the first day he saw her, smoke and safety and _tenderness_ , and how she’d seen him, a passionate, beautiful, bruised prince.

 

_We were meant to be together. We_ **_chose_ ** _to be together._

 

She pricks her finger on his pin, letting him suck the droplets with his hot tongue. The other jinn have given them privacy, lingering just close enough to shoulder the burden of the transformation.

 

“I have and will love you forever,” he promises, eyes wet, heart content.

 

“Beyond life and death, my love.” Their kiss leaves a warmth in her chest, even as she cradles his face and cool tears stream down her cheeks. “You will always come back to me.”

 

“You have my heart, Betty. As much as you’ve always been there when I’ve needed you, I know you’ll be here with me through anything. Through everything. There’s nothing more I want in my life than a future with you, as your soulmate, at your side.”

 

_My pair, my mate, my prince. My Jughead. Our bond._

 

The change hits him first in the chest, a sharp burning sensation that sprigs through him like a fast-blooming tree. Pain makes him gasp, eyes widening even more when the edges of Betty steam, pulled down into his fast-evaporating lungs.

 

An actual _part_ of him. She hums, reminisce of one of the songs Archie wrote for them. It grounds him. _She_ grounds him, hands still on either side of his face. Even as he chokes, stinging, evaporating, his eyes swirl with the image of her, pulsing with his newfound power, all of it focused on staying with her. The birds sing too, channeling vibrations under both of their skins, pushing their souls together, moving the binding from his pins to each other.

 

Even though he shudders, Betty can still feel him, and now she can _breathe_ him. Sees the way his pupils dilate and swirl, hears the song, his pulse in his ears. She takes as much of the pain as she can. It’s amazing. All of the transformations she’s seen or heard of were _excruciating_ , and this certainly isn’t _good_...but it’s much _better_. Jughead grits his teeth and bears it. Her strong, passionate prince.

 

_You’re doing so well_.

 

It takes him time to be able to stand again, his body giving out and giving way to steam, but she’s _with_ him, so invested it never even occurs to her to let go. Wobbling, he’s able to creep with her towards the river. The birds watch from afar as they sink into it, the coolness of the water reminding them what’s solid, what’s floating.

 

Stunned, nearly weightless, he stares at her.

 

_I love you_ is the first thought she hears. And his voice, his beautiful heart, has a smokey quality to it. But it’s his voice there. His heart binding to hers.

 

_I love you._

 

And then she feels it, his heart and stomach getting sated on her own desire. To be with him. To have him safe. Loving him. And his, feeding hers, to have forever, to honor her, to revere this. Their bodies weave together, physical and ethereal, changing and yet remaining steadfast.

 

There’s no other wants. Nothing else they need to grant outside of one another’s hearts. They’re in love, they’re together, and now, they can cherish it forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone else emotional? *sniffs* Have some chocolate or marshmallows or tea or whatever else is on hand along with some tissues while I sob in the corner thinking of Jughead giving his laptop to JB before changing, of him still writing stories with parchment and ink and traversing forever so happily with Betty, their beings almost constantly intertwined. Everyone would think they just have the honeymoon glow. They could guardian and visit their friends and families and oh yep I'm crying. How are you feeling? What parts stand out to you and what do you envision for their future? Thank you so much for going on this journey and I hope we all find as wonderful a heart's desire as these two found in each other 💛 💙

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you all enjoy discovering the devotion Betty and Jughead find in each other, and that you have a magnificent life full of love.
> 
> Again, shoutout to @jandjsalmon, superstar beta and overall person for all her guidance. Comments make me almost as happy as Bughead does (which is saying a LOT) so please do leave me your thoughts or favorite passages or even reach out to me on tumblr at @lovedinapastlife.


End file.
